Years I have slept, bound to the darkness that is inside myself. I have cursed, screamed, cried and begged, though no sound has escaped unfeeling lips and no tears have been shed from dry unseeing eyes. The voices in my mind are many; chaotic, confused and full of grief. I hear them, call to them, yet they do not respond.

The power that flows through my veins is now a curse; burning my flesh, contorting and constricting as I remain inside my prison. I can not move, limbs have long since become useless, as I am suspended in this dark, timeless existence. It was not supposed to be so.

Dumat had promised the light, the Golden City, a place of purity and peace. Betrayed I was, we all were, led through the darkness into a city that had turned black from our touch. We didn't know, weren't told, that entering such a sacred place while still alive would distort it to the nightmare that now looms out of reach in Oblivion. Human corruption? No, no it was always meant to make us stronger! Dumat! Why have you forsaken your most faithful servant!

I hear them in my mind, those hundreds, thousands of beings, as corrupt as I am. But they are lost, as lost as I, unsure where to turn or who to follow. They have been forced to live as savages, struggling to survive, cursed beyond recognition or redemption. I am but a vessel for their nightmares, a whisper of their shadows, they hover near and yet I can do nothing.

The solitude is maddening. What day is it? What year? How long have I been kept a prisoner of my own mind? I was once powerful, beautiful, the envy of all who knew me! Now I can only call to them, the lost souls that cry out, beg for them to free me. How long have I called, how often have I yearned for a reply? To know I am not alone, but unable to be heard...

Where did I go wrong? How have I failed? There are no answers, no questions, no sanity to any of it!

A shift in the air I no longer breath, a sense of... something. Someone? The tainted ones, they call him Hawke. As my lungs only slightly fill again they are restricted. Curse you! The barrier had weakened, and now is reinforced again? His blood... I can smell his blood through the earth that surrounds me. Choking, constricting, binding, no!

The blood. Blood of the Hawke. It has become a mantra, the only detail I can focus on. I've repeated it more times than I can remember. His blood has bound me, yet will also free me. Blood of the Hawke, blood of the Hawke, hear me, bring it to me, I can use him, I can be free!

Time has slowed again, my mind lost to its own chaos, the voices growing distant... until one day, one glorious day, there is finally an answer. And then as the days follow, there are more answers, more voices, communicating with me, and for the first time in centuries I am no longer alone! Find me the blood, free me, and you will receive all that was promised to me and more! I shall return to the Black City with my faithful followers at my side, grant them the power that Dumat could not deliver! Bring me the blood, the blood of the Hawke, my salvation!

Yes, that's right, break the seals that bind. I feel the cold, oh what a gift it is to feel! My eyes begin to focus, the light blinding and first, but a warmth on my decayed flesh delights me. They say I am confused, that it truly has been years, they talk as if I can not hear, but I am nearly whole again. My power is stirring, shifting within my soul, the Fade... I can feel it, am connected with it once more! I shall rain down my wrath upon those that refuse to bow to me. The Hawke, her companions, will all answer to Corypheus!

How easily they believed fire, ice, electricity were all I could conjure. Me, a Tevinter magister with more power than those four mages combined. Manipulation was always my strongest weapon, oh Dumat you would be proud of your servant. They have released me, believed to have defeated me, and yet allowed me to walk away in the form of a former Warden-Commander.

Freedom is mine.