A witch, an elf, and a fat man are looking into a mirror...

"I feel like this is the opening to a joke."

Morrigan gives you a scathing look while Merrill the Dalish elf glances at you innocently, from where she'd been admiring the mirror, "What joke?"

Hawke pats her on the shoulder, "We'll think of it later, right now the Inquisitor needs your assistance."

Morrigan rolls her eyes, "Whatever good that will do." Merrill's face hardens in an instant, blank innocence giving way to cold steel in a fraction of a second. The temperature in the room literally rises several degrees as you feel their anger subtly manifest as ambient heat.

"Oook. Focusing on the problem at hand." You try to calm the two very powerful, very angry mages by reminding them of the bigger picture. It doesn't work but at least their attention is on you now.

"We need to get this thing open, as soon as possible."

"What? The Eluvian? Open?" Merrill clearly isn't up to speed and you give Hawke a frustrated look.

She shrugged, "What? I didn't want to excite her over rumors, it's not like you tell me everything that goes on in that castle of yours."

"Tell you what? What's going on?"

"Oh yes, the Dalish mage is clearly a vital asset." Morrigan drawls sarcastically and you make a mental note to **** her to unconsciousness with your dick later. Hawke swallows hard and takes a breath to begin explaining the situation to Merrill.

Ten emotion-fueled minutes later, the admittedly adorable Dalish elf is glaring daggers at the mirror as though it had personally wronged her. Morrigan held her hands over it, muttering incantations under her breath, and thoroughly ignoring everyone else in the room. Hawke was standing off to one side, looking anxiously at Merrill. Apparently the elf had spent the better part of her time in Kirkwall trying to reassemble an eluvian with no success. She was NOT happy to hear the Inquisition had had a fully operational one for years without her knowing.

Morrigan's voice rose and as she finished her arcane speech she held her hands out dramatically as though the gateway would open in response. It didn't. She sighed tiredly, "Tis as I expected, the gateway needs a physical key to open. Not one we currently possess."

Merrill scoffed but didn't respond. You wait for a moment before speaking up, "Yes Merrill?"

She sighed heavily and uncrossed her arms, stepping up the the mirror, "You wouldn't need a physical object to harmonize with the mirror, you'd just need to match the key's properties."

Your brow raises as the voices in your head confirm what she said. Morrigan waves dismissively, "There's no way of knowing what the key-" "Shush, let her do her thing." The witch glares at you but obeys, stepping out of the way to let the elf examine the mirror.

"Just like knowing the inside of a lock, understanding the key only from the mirror is difficult. But as Isabella can attest, picking a lock is hardly impossible. The problem is activating the mirror after the fact-" "Childs play."

You're about to hush Morrigan again before Merrill beats you to it, "Fine. Then shut up and help me."

You give an impressed look to Hawke and she returns it with a knowing tilt of her head before speaking up concernedly, "You know, Merrill, last I heard this was just theory-"

"Well I did some practice while you were away!" The clipped tone left no room for interpretation that Hawke would be sleeping on the metaphorical couch for a while for not telling her about the Eluvians, rumored or otherwise. Hawke dejectedly sat on the bench by the door, still tense and watching her Dalish lover carefully. It was sweet how concerned she was for Merrill's safety but you weren't in the mood to be accomidating: this needed to be resolved yesterday, you absolutely could not have qunari running around the Eluvian network.

With a sudden flare and the rumbling sound like a huge leather drum, the Eluvian sprang to life. You smiled, Hawke smiled, Merrill jumped up and down giddily, and even Morrigan looked grudgingly pleased. Now you just had to pick the team you wanted with you.

A thought occurred to you as you were gathering your forces to delve into the mirror: Morrigan and Merrill were two very powerful apostate mages, one of whom was technically Chasind and the other Dalish. Some might even say that they were leaders in their own right. Between Celene and Anora you were confident you could get most of the citizens in Ferelden and Orlais... except for the elves and apostates. You did some rough mental calculations in your head, aided by the whispers of Mythal's priests: if you stretched the spell just a little bit... maybe...