When Hercules, Melys, and Ellana handle the hurlocks and make it to the inner chamber, they find themselves greeted by dark and stillness. They'll need to find sources of light--the hurlock's dropped torch, unlit braziers on the wall, Ellana's staff--but when they do, even the fog hanging in the air will seem heavy and unmoving.

At the head of the chamber is a Joining chalice, empty and unremarkable; on either side of the table before it, however, there are six scattered bodies, none in Warden armor. Four are dead with no obvious signs of trauma; two had their throats cut; all are mages, if they're examined closely enough to note their robes, staves, or spellbooks. In better days the bodies would have been tended to properly rather than left behind on the floor. Someone left in a hurry.

Scipio and Kaisa will arrive through a door at the top of the stairs behind the Joining site, near the large, barred doors that block--should block--the Deep Roads entrance that the outpost was designed to guard. The doors have been forced open already, one side damaged so badly that they can't be closed again, and beyond there's faint and distant light.

The light is emanating from beneath what used to be the floor, a seal constructed over the Deep Roads tunnel beneath Valeska's Watch. It's gone now. The Wardens in the group will be able to sense darkspawn nearby, but retreating quickly. The drop down into the tunnel is short enough to jump down, carefully, and climb back up with the aid of a fairly small length of rope; even from the level above, however, it will be clear that the once-collapsed tunnel has been substantially cleared and left wide open. It will take more help--explosives, masonry--to seal the entrance again.