Solas agrees, if only he knew how to articulate it; anything, anything at all would have been better than this. If he had never made the dagger, if he had simply let all of them die, himself included, it would have been the superior option. Would have reduced the bloodshed to the merest fraction of what it one day would become.

But at the time? It had seemed the only way. Barcus' hand, light on his arm— he shudders. So few people touch him, and even then it is unusual for any among that number not to mean him harm. Much has changed, since coming to Caldera.

"The Lyrium," He says, quietly, "It is a magically infused crystalline metal. Very powerful, and very beautiful. It's uses are nearly-infinite, and we took it for our own purposes, where we found it, thinking of Lyrium as nothing more than as any other mineral— but it is not. It is the blood of Titans, living stone, that carries their deep magic within it. They did not appreciate our scavenging."