After working nearly all day and all night for a week solid, doing odd-jobs for people no one else would comfortably do work for, Lyria finally had enough coin to convince Bartrand to take her on as a partner of his expedition.
With Varric by her side, they went to Hightown and found Bartrand in the small area that had been allocated to the surface dwarves.
At first Bartrand was suspicious — Varric had been missing for the entire week! Just what was he up to and why was he with this penniless nobody from Lowtown who wanted to hire onto the expedition?
Varric explained that he had convinced this "penniless nobody" to be their partner. She had the money in her purse right now.
Bartrand was dubious but quickly changed his tune when Lyria jingled her purse in front of his face.
He immediately accepted her as a partner and promised to share all the profits between him, Varric, and herself. All they needed now was a decent entrance into the deep roads of this region...
Lyria smiled and handed him the maps that Anders had given her. Four or five perfectly good entrances, all around the Free Marches. They just had to choose one and go!
Bartrand clapped with glee and told Lyria to finish up any business she might have in the city. They'd be going soon and they'd be gone for several weeks, perhaps even a couple of months.
Lyria had no outstanding business and told the dwarf that they were as ready as they were ever going to be.
Gathering all of his dwarves and hired mercenaries, Bartrand started to discuss the expedition with all involved so they could get on their way, but it was swiftly interrupted by Lyria and Carver's mother.
She ran over to Lyria and Carver, upset, and demanded that Lyria not take Carver into the deep roads with her. What if something went wrong? What if she lost all of her children? She could not bare it.
Despite their mother's pleas, Carver wanted to go into the deep roads and partake in the expedition, and Lyria wanted him to come to (so he wouldn't become a despicable templar in her absence — that seemed like something he would do).
There was no debate. Carver was going with her. She felt bad for her mother, but this was the way things had to be.
With that drama out of the way, they returned to the dwarves and all together they set forth for the deep roads... leaving their mother to weep as they walked away.
After several days journey, they found themselves deep beneath the ground and walking the deep roads. Anders already hated it — this was why he had left the Grey Wardens, he groaned as they traversed the dark passageways.
They were only going to traverse more dark passageways — their route was blocked by rubble and it was unknown how long it would take to clear. Either they waited days or weeks for the clearing, or they tried to find another way around the rubble and on to the other side.
Bartrand was uneasy about the idea of going through the other passageways, the scouts had said they were dangerous and filled with darkspawn, but he was also impatient. He'd let Varric and Lyria have a quick looksie; besides, they had a Grey Warden with them.
Before they could head off, Bodahn quickly stopped them. Sandal, his son with the penchant for enchanting, had gone wandering off in the tunnels. While they were exploring the tunnels and trying to find a way around, could they keep an eye out for him?
Of course they could.
The side tunnels were far more pleasing to the eye than the dreary roads they had been following. Great blue veins of lyrium encased the walls and thrummed with magic. It was fantastic.
What was not fantastic was the sheer amount of darkspawn they had to fight through.
And the giant spiders... and the monstrous ones too! Lyria had never before seen a spider of that size. It was certainly a... memorable experience.
In the next cavern past all the darkspawn and spiders, they found Bodahn's son, Sandal. He was surrounded by piles of dead darkspawn and there was even a frozen ogre that had been coming for him.
Lyria asked just how he had managed this feat, but didn't get many answers. While he seemed to have survived well enough, she sent him back to Bodahn.
They travelled through more cave-like side tunnels until they emerged into more dwarvenly-constructed areas. However the ancient dwarves traversed these tunnels was beyond her. It was so twisty and turny.
Finally they found a part of the road that seemed to connect with the one they had originally been travelling on and hurried back to tell Bartrand that they had found the way forward — they wouldn't have to dig rubble for a week!
Back on track, they followed the road for some time until they came upon an ancient thaig... a thaig so ancient that even the cranky Bartrand was awed by it.
He looked it over and proclaimed it a very strange place. There were no monuments to the paragons and the atmosphere was weird; it was unlike any old thaig he had ever been in. Whatever dwarves had lived here, it surely had to be before the Blights even began.
Lyria shrugged. An ancient abnormal thaig? Surely that meant ancient abnormal treasures that could make them incredibly wealthy! This was just what they were looking for.
She checked in with Bodahn to make sure Sandal was okay after his encounter. Bodahn was just so relieved to have his son back and promised Lyria that he would repay her, somehow.
While the rest of the expedition set up camp, Lyria grabbed her group and together they continued exploring this strange region. Lyria hadn't noticed before but as they continued through the caverns she quickly became aware that the lyrium veins were no longer blue... but a foreboding red.
Surely that couldn't be healthy.
In a chamber, they found an altar with an idol made of pure lyrium sitting atop it. Made of pure -red- lyrium. None of them liked it and Anders in particular seemed very wary of it, but whatever the case, it was made of pure lyrium and should be worth a fortune.
Bartrand came up behind them so they tossed him the idol to put somewhere safe whilst they continued cataloguing this room. Surely there had to be more in here!
Bartrand, however, had other ideas.
He took the idol then waltzed out of the chamber, slamming the door shut behind him and making sure the group within could not get out.
This idol — the location of this entire thaig! — was worth a fortune and he was not willing to split it three ways. He didn't care if his brother perished. If they all perished. The fortune was his and his alone.
Varric was incensed. His own brother had screwed him over — screwed them all over.
There was nothing they could do about it right now, trapped in this ancient thaig. They'd have to find their own way out... hopefully there would be another way out. All they could do was go further into the thaig and hope for the best.
This expedition was most certainly not turning out how Lyria had imagined it would.
Until next time! 😊🐲⚔️
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 