Except from The Song of the Shepard (Canto 3, Stanza 7). Light spoilers for Mass Effect. © Bioware

The stope leads steeply into the ground

Echoes rattle away as our booted feet pound.

Lamps flash up before us, lighting the mine,

Flicker out as we pass, dark follows behind.

Long we search through the ancient rooms

Their purpose lost in endless glooms

Til deep in the maze far under the ground

Where clatter of rock is the only sound

I see in the distance a pale cool light

Beyond the orange lamps, in the long buried night.

We follow and come to a gap in the wall

That seems to be filled with a waterfall,

Translucent, impassable, softly it glows

Over our faces its rippling light flows.

Suspended within it, a blue maiden floats.

To us she calls in mellifluous notes.

‘Hello! Hello! Can you hear me out there?

Please help me, I’m trapped, I’ve been caught in a snare.’

Her face is young, like a blooming girl

Smoothly away her pert head-tails curl.

Her eyes are as blue and as round as the sky.

Her small, dainty hands are work-hardened and dry.

She is dressed in a slender tunic of green.

That face is the sweetest that I’ve ever seen.

‘We hear you!’ I call. ‘We’ll get you out.

But what is your name? What is this about?’

‘I’m just a researcher, Liara T’Soni.

This is an old Prothean piece of security.

I turned the field on to hold off the Geth.

But I did something wrong…’ she seems short of breath.

‘-This was probably meant to catch persons of doubt.

Now the Geth can’t get in, but I can’t get out.’

‘Can you tell me how to shut down the field?’

‘Yes, there’s a button. Just past this shield.

It’s out of my reach, over there on the wall.

But you can’t get through here, that’s no good at all.

And I know of no other passage but this.

I cannot direct you to paths in the darkness.

‘We’ll find one.’ I say. ‘Stay calm, you’ll get out.’

‘The Geth have been trying, searching about.

Be careful out there, there’s a Krogan who leads them.

The Geth may be deadly, but beware of him!’

I call to the ship, let them know she’s been found,

But we’ll be some time for she’s bound underground.

We leave the blue maiden floating alone

And take a dark path leading off through the stone.

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