"Used to be how all the thiags were connected, how dwarves got from one city to the next," she says, "Then the taint came and the Darkspawn with it. The thaigs fell. There's only one or two left now. And the Deep Roads are a pit. Whatever you've seen in space? It's worst in the Deep Roads."

She can say that with absolute confidence, "They exiled some of us there, during the food riots in Orzammar. Sometimes I forget I'm not still there."