"Tut, tut. You're certainly are a magnet for trouble. But it is this trouble that breaks your mortal binds, Little Bird."
"Little Bird." Anri groaned when he realized he was probably still unconscious and stuck in his dreamscape.
"Stuck in your dreamscape? You should consider yourself lucky!"
Anri felt the world around him tremble and shake apart, like waves rising to crash down on him. A chaotic rush of emotions from memories bombarded his senses, breaking his spirit to reforge it over and over until the noise that surrounded his form became one consistent and clean hum. His spirit form was transformed into a golden orb of celestial light linked to his soul form.
"This is your Soul Core, which marks your being on the path of immortality. Only five beings, including yourself, have this in your world. You are one lucky elvhen."
"Immortality?" Confusion stirred through waves of an endless sea Anri saw before him.
"Elvhen were once immortal beings, but the Veil shattered your connection to the Fade. This also destroyed your Soul Core, which is where immortality is made possible." The spirit wisely informed Anri with a tinge of knowing sadness rippling through the sea.
"What am I seeing before me?"
"Your spiritual sea where your soul core can cultivate into a nascent soul origin of the immortal ways and beyond."
"How did this happened?"
"You carried the Fade through the Anchor, which changed you within and without. The Fade Energy activated your Elvhen inheritance and began to form the core. Gradually, as you cultivated power so did the core. Even with the Anchor gone, your body is constantly being reforged to unlock and remake your Soul Core with Fade Energy. The recent body trauma empowered your Spiritual Sea with emotional energy it was lacking to finally be awakened. Lucky you have me to keep it balanced."
"You are?"
Laughter rippled his sea. "Who am I? Am I mystery, a spirit, a truth or just a figment of your imagination?"
"It's obvious you're a spirit. I need to call you something."
Anri yelped when water rose as a massive tidal wave, but rather than crash down on him, it remained as a high wall. Within the water a column of elven words appeared as shimmering gold light.
"I AM THE LIGHT. THE WAY. THE TRUTH TO LIES. KINGS SEEK ME OUT. WOMEN BASK IN MY GLORY. I AM RAY."
"Do you have to be so melodramatic?" Anri chuckled and nodded. "Ray it is. And I'm not Little Bird. My name is Anri Lavellan. Call me Anri."
"Anri, there is another little bird, a baby one who also resonates with the Fade like you do. Her soul core has barely formed an impression. Save this rare one and you may be able to save yourself."
The water wall crashed down on him to send his spirit consciousness back into the external world. He woke with a start.
"Your Worship!" Mattron gasped with relief as he saw Anri come too.
"My name's Anri. I don't know who this Your Worship is." His words were weak but clear for the templar to understand.
"My head." Anri shook and banged the side of his head to stir sense back into him.
His eyes blinked in the cramp cage-cart space he shared with Mattron and a few other pitiful-looking poor folk. There was one other human. The four others were elves.
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His heart skipped a beat with horror when one of the elves was a young girl who looked no older than ten. She was hugging her bony knees as she slept. Her stained dress was torn and caked with dirt. The others were trying to keep their distance from her. He saw why. Her matted blond hair had lice dropping off the ends.
He stared at the familiar templar face of dark-ringed eyes, thin lips and angled jawline. Mattron's head was shaven low to be a carpet of dark brown. His templar armor was heavily damaged with both magic scorches and blade dents.
"Why are you here?" Mattron quietly asked.
"I was trekking the wastelands for Nevarra and got caught. Lucky me I guess."
"Really, you just happened to get caught?" Another voice cut through the conversation with a tone of suspicion.
Anri looked about. His eyes widened when he couldn't believe the reunion he was having. "Wait. Crassius Servis?"
"Oh, so Your Worship remembers me." Servis bitterly said, purposely using Anri's old title.
"Anri, I'm not this Your Worship." Anri frowned.
The Servis before him was definitely human, and his face was free from markings. He suspected the Dalish elf the people saw was going by a fake name, but it still concerned him that his clan's vallaslin was a notable feature of this culprit at large.
"What happened to you to be imprisoned in a Venatori cage-cart?" Anri whispered as he cast an eye around their iron cage environment and recognized it well.
Servis huffed. "Ever since you made me cut my ties with them, they've hunted me and I got caught. End of story."
"Here?" Anri suspected there was more to it.
"Isn't it the same for you?" Servis threw back.
Distant screaming and cries of pain made everyone in the cage-cart go silent. It woke up the girl who began to whimper. Lice or no, Anri climbed over the others who gave way, so he could to sit next to her.
"It's okay, we're here with you Little One," he said with soothing tones, hoping to ease her fears.
"They hurt people. I'm scared," she whimpered.
Anri sidled close to her and began to hum a calming song to ease her fears.
A jarring bang shook the cage to make it totter. When it settled, they saw smoke and a magical blaze go up to engulf the carts ahead of the large cavern they were trapped within.
"We have to get out of here." Servis fretted.
"No doubt." Anri saw that his blade and crossbow were removed, but they fortunately left his belt containing his fadepicks concealed in the lining. They were needle-like lockpicks molded out of veilquartz and dragonbone, which could severe any lock even magical ones. It was one of Dagna's innovations, which she promised would come in handy for certain moments.
He glanced around for the lock and saw a way to access it.
"It's magically sealed that lock." Mattron confirmed.
"Then we use an enchanted pick to unlock it," Anri said with confidence and a wink to the young girl who had stopped trembling with fear for the first time. Her doe-like eyes stared at him with her hope.
"You have one?" Servis's eyes glowed with keen interest.
Anri eased back and gave his former informant a hard stare. "Maybe or I could be all talk. First things first. What really happened to you?"
"It's as I told you. If you have a way out Lavellan, then do it now!"
"Since you used my name, I'll be nice."
"You can free us?" The other elves spoke for the first time.
Anri nodded and climbed over Servis to reach the lock, but his good arm was still throbbing from the pain of having an arrow pierce it and be pulled out. With only one functioning arm, it was a struggle to grip the fadepick. Fortunately, someone had mended his wound just enough so he didn't bleed out.
"I bandaged your arm with some of my robe," Mattron said when he saw Anri staring at the makeshift bandage around it.
"Thank you. I'll do my best to get us all out of this."
The girl perked up with fear on her dirt-smudged face. "They're coming back!"
"They?" Anri looked puzzled.
Mattron answered, "The mages. This girl can tell when they're nearer."
Anri wasted no time and began reaching for the cart's padlock, pushing past his pain as he fed his arm through the bars with a fadepick in his sweaty and slippery fingers.
The girl hugged her knees again and was chanting their proximity. They heard crude chatter and sounds of stomping boots approaching.
"Any time now." Servis mumbled.
"If you quit panicking, I'll get this done faster," Anri aloofly said as he slipped the fadepick into the lock and fumbled around with the catches.
The lock's latch slipped open just as three well-armed guards and an all-black-robed enchanter appeared. They saw the padlock drop off and Anri kick the door open.
"What the? Get em!" The guards raced for their cart.
