“So, not surprisingly, in these tables you see a slight increase in mode average miasma indicator levels correlated strongly with years since the Joining--for about the first twenty years,” said Alim. “After that, the correlation gets a bit fuzzy, and around twenty-four years it just goes all over the place. Some Wardens had massively high levels, similar to the phylacteries we took from the ones who turned out to be hearing the real Calling after Nightmare was defeated, while others followed the normal steady increase seen in the younger Wardens. Of course, I requested to be informed if any of the senior Wardens started hearing the Calling, but Maker knows if they’ll actually tell me, or how long it takes, or if there’s even actually any causal effect between miasma levels and the Calling, or if it’s primarily or secondarily influenced by the magical binding to the darkspawn horde inherent in the Joining. Or, for that matter, if the indicators we’ve been testing for actually reliably indicate the quantity of miasmatic particles per measure, at that point or if they’re actually something else.”

“I doubt it is primarily the magic binding,” mused Zevran. “It could be just that it takes a while for increased miasma level to trigger the Calling. It appears to me that the resistance gained in the Joining eventually partially breaks down.”

“Well, obviously. The Calling eventually causes a form of ghoulification. Fiona even described it in her original debriefing about the Architect. Whom I keep having nightmares about running into again, since we found out the whole ‘Corypheus can take over people’s bodies and live indefinitely’ thing. No way he’s dead. I wish I’d just brought him in.”

“Well, one usually expects dead things to stay dead, no? Especially if you burn the body? Besides, Fiona’s report and what she’s actually said to us suggest that the Architect had some level of control over the actual progress of the Blight in others. Corypheus did not, or he would not have used the Nightmare demon, or at least not in Orlais, where he actually was. Perhaps his body-stealing was unique to him.”

“Or perhaps it wasn’t. We don’t know. Yeah, none of the people I had with me suddenly turned into a misshapen horror, but we know Seranni was there, and she ran off after talking with Velanna and we never saw her again. We looked, afterwards, but didn’t find anything. And the demon? Probably just for the scale of the thing. Fiona’s group was only a few Wardens.”

“In any case, we need to do more studies of older Wardens, to see how the resistance fails, and why. I have heard of similar things, with poison resistance--eventually the liver or kidneys fail, from overwork--but I am not sure it is the liver or kidneys affected here. By all accounts, the Calling does not cause symptoms of that.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’ve seen people hear the real Calling, I would’ve noticed. Still, might be worth doing a study on alcohol or drug consumption vs. Joining age at Calling. Or just studying more wardens. There were only 348 Wardens left in Orlais, and most of the ones who survived Adamant were younger mages. We only had phylacteries from 57 who were Joined for twenty years or more.”

“Still, if it does turn out that it is the miasma levels, we also isolated the resistance factor. Perhaps administering it would delay the Calling, no?”

“And again, we’d need more subjects, and I don’t want ones who are there because I pulled rank and ordered them. Phylacteries for testing are one thing. This is another. I can’t--” A knock on the door interrupted him.

“Letter for you, Messere Surana!”

Alim got up and opened the door. “That’s ‘Warden-Commander,’ for the sixth time” he said, taking the letter. “Wait, Weisshaupt? They never answer this quickly.”

“Is it good news or bad news?”

“I have to open it first,” grumbled Alim.

“‘To Warden-Commander Surana, of Vigil’s Keep, et cetera et cetera, the First Warden, Greetings’” he read. “‘In light of your recent--’ Oh. Are you shitting me?”

“What?” asked Zevran, brow furrowed.

“‘In light of your recent success in isolating the Blight miasma and the resistance factor to it, you are, effective immediately, transferred to Weisshaupt Fortress, and granted the title of Senior Warden-Enchanter. As this is a research position, your research leave is terminated upon receipt of this letter, and you are to report to Weisshaupt Fortress at the earliest possibility.  You are directly ordered to bring your colleague, Messere Arainai, with you, by Right of Conscription if necessary. Additionally, Mage Warden-Retired Fiona is restored to active duty and assigned under you. Transportation costs for you, Messere Arainai, Private Fiona, your (plural) personal effects, and any equipment necessary to your research are to be paid for by the Wardens; a letter of credit is enclosed.’

“The rest is salary, responsibilities, people under my command who are already at Weisshaupt, oh apparently I report directly to the Chamberlain of the Grey, that’s interesting, I need to send ahead my measurements for a new set of uniforms; anyway, stuff I can read later, because I don’t have a choice about any of it. Damn it, I asked for a letter of command to the University of Orlais, under the Blight Treaties, and an extension of research leave, so I could study there! I doubt the University would have let me use the front gate, but with a Warden letter at least they’d have to give me lab access.”

“Also, they can’t conscript me. I am a Crow. That means I am not, technically, an Antivan citizen, and also not subject to the Right of Conscription under the Treaties.”

“I’m not so sure the Crows don’t want an excuse to have you out of their hair for good. If you were a Warden, that would be either close enough to legally dead, or just actually dead, for them to stop getting themselves killed by you without losing their honor.”

“That is a disturbingly good point.”

“Anyway, now I have to go find Leliana and Fiona. And this day was going so well, too.”

“I mean, I get why they’d want you back, given the role you played, but I thought you were out for good.”

“Well, technically,” said Fiona, “I wasn’t entirely out, just--”

“Permanent disability, of course, I’m an idiot,” finished Alim, running his hands through his hair. “Usually that’s ‘got your legs chopped off’ or ‘took an acid spell to the eyes and the healer wasn’t fast enough,’ but I suppose ‘inability to sense darkspawn’ would also work, especially if both you and the Wardens wanted an excuse to let you go.”

“But ‘if a suitable position opens up in which duties can be performed despite the disability, the Wardens may reinstate qualified individuals.’”

“Do you know anything about the First Warden? Or Weisshaupt?”

“I was debriefed at Weisshaupt, after the Architect incident. It was...odd. It felt half-empty, compared to the numbers in must have had, during the first few Blights. I’d say it was larger than Skyhold, really. Half the Wardens there were high-ranking officers. It was definitely an active fortress, with plenty of field troops, but also an entire wing of bureaucracy, and enough mages for a small circle. They were even set up to do harrowings, for mage recruits. A really advanced infirmary, though; I got to see several dissections. I already knew I was going to be leaving the Wardens, by that point, but I thought I should learn what I could, since the Circles didn’t allow it.”

“When I got to Vigil’s Keep at the start of my command there, I found a box marked with my name that the Orlesian Wardens had brought there. Books on anatomy and ‘somatic magic’, printed at Weisshaupt. Also, a pamphlet arguing in favor of considering the Blight a miasma like common illnesses. The Chantry finally unbanned that one two years later.”

“They were trying to find the cause of the Blight even then, over thirty years ago, and it wasn’t a new effort, as I gathered. There’s a reason the First Warden wants you close.”

“They just didn’t have the proper equipment. I didn’t invent the automatic laboratory centrifuge. Some fellow at the University of Orlais did, just a few years ago. I’m not sure the Anderfels had heard of it until I mentioned it in one of my reports a while back.”

“But anyway, that was Weisshaupt, thirty-odd years ago. I don’t know what it’s like now. As for the First Warden, he wasn’t First Warden yet, in fact he couldn’t have been Joined at all. You know more about him than I do.”

“He doesn’t like me, no surprise there, that whole ‘killed the Archdemon as a barely Joined adolescent and somehow survived doing it’ thing, but he couldn’t just put me in the rank and file somewhere in Orlais, after that, which made him hate me more, so he stuck me in a minor outpost in Ferelden and gave Soldier’s Peak, the fort everyone wanted now that the Drydens had cleaned it up, to someone with proper experience; and then Amaranthine and the Architect went down, and I shook things up again. So the First Warden’s only been the First Warden since 9:30 Dragon, and I am seriously messing with his ability to look competent, over here. Commander Clarel over in Orlais also thinks I make her look bad, especially after someone tells her that one of my men is actually a possessed corpse, and to her I’m all but spitting in her hard work to get her post as a mage, which to be honest is kind of fair, so the two of them decide to send me a bunch of Warden Templars, theoretically because I’ve got too many mage Wardens in one place, but really a message to keep my head down. And then the Anders Incident happens, because Anders managed to get into Orlais on one of his escapes from the tower and apparently kicked the shit out of one of these particular Templars, during a failed capture. At least, Hawke says that Anders says that’s why, and I have no idea where Anders is and those Templars are dead. So, at least this is a thing they can blame on me, to keep me at Nowhere’s Keep, Ferelden. And then the peace Zevran brokered with the Crows breaks down in ‘38, most of his guild of Ravens gets killed, he has to run, so I applied for research leave so I could be with him. Fortunately, the First Warden is considerably happier to leave Howe in charge, and he realizes I might actually do something useful this way, so he lets me go, but isn’t nice enough to actually make sure the University of Orlais will work with me. You know what I mean. So I end up here, eventually. And then we make a breakthrough that was really only a matter of time and equipment development, and then...this. I’m honestly not sure he doesn’t mean to lock me in a tower or kill me.”

“Lock you in a tower, probably. Senior Warden-Enchanter is a left-handed promotion; outside of emergencies, you can’t command non-mage wardens. I mean, it’s probably the command ladder you should have been on in the first place, no offense intended, but the usual step up from Warden-Commander is Senior Warden-Commander.”

“None taken. All I ever wanted to do was alchemical research--and not go to Aeonar, which was why I joined the Wardens in the first place. From what I’ve read of the Anderfels, my priorities might have been misplaced.”

“It’s not that bad. Sand everywhere, from the Blights, and the Volca and Colean seas make the weather very odd, but Weisshaupt is actually away from most of that, and just a few days’ hard riding from Hossberg, and Kal-Sharok too now, I’m told. I actually stayed at Hossberg Circle, for a few weeks after leaving the Wardens, before I transferred back to Montsimmard. There was exactly one other elf there, who’d been transferred in because they needed him to teach something, and it’s like that for most of the country, but being a curiosity is a little easier to deal with than, well, Orlais. Or different, at least.”

“Won’t turn me away from an inn because they want to brag they saw a real live elf? I mean, at least then I do get a room. But it’s going to get old pretty quick.”

“Leli, do your people know anything about the First Warden?”

“Not much. Why, is he sending you Templars again?”

Alim explained.

“The real problem is that three elves have to travel across either Nevarra or Orlais. You remember how we always had to send Alistair and Morrigan to shops, during the Blight? It’ll be like that, only we might well have to book passage on a ship. Zevran and I could handle what we’d get, ourselves, but Fiona’s old enough to be my mother, and shouldn’t be in a ship’s hold. So, have you got any humans you were planning on sending to the Anderfels?”

Leliana sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Three days later, they set off for Weisshaupt--Alim, Zevran, Fiona, and one of Leli’s people, a woman who was actually a legitimate merchant making a trade run to Kal-Sharok. The phylacteries and optic lenses and herb jars were in padded boxes, the research notes and litmus strips were in waxed leather envelopes, and the centrifuge was disassembled and carried on a packhorse of its own. Alim looked back at Skyhold, where he had lived and worked for nearly three years, at those who lived there he was leaving behind, and then away again, in front of him. It was a long road ahead.