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The fog came on swiftly, cloaking the world in shadow and turning the stones beneath our feet into a treacherous slick. I knew we had to find shelter before we lost even that faint light. We stumbled on, following Ragnarr's broad painted back, and arrived at an ancient Tevinter temple just as the last of daylight left us. Ragnarr instructed us to pitch our shelters beneath the entrance passageway and warned us not to wander too deep into the ruin. His voice was an uneasy whisper, and I knew at once he was afraid. Wary of alarming the rest of our expedition, I took Ragnarr aside and spoke to him. Some of the Avvar, he said, believed the temple to be the haunt of old, vengeful spirits. The Tevinter had come here long ago and built their great temples and then one day, without warning, they had abandoned them all. Ragnarr was convinced they had done something terrible here, though he could not tell me what it was. Whatever the reason, he found the temple deeply disturbing and had brought us to it only out of desperation.
I slept fitfully that night. Once, I opened my eyes to see a pulsating amber light from beyond a second doorway. I blinked and it was gone. In the morning, the fog had lifted, and I wasn't sure if I had really seen the light, or dreamed it.
—From the travel journals of Ser Nigel, explorer and knight