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[Bluenose]

This is not exactly a Dragon Age playthrough. It's more a series of comments, impressions, tactical notes, and some rather random silliness (and less random seriousness). It's the second playthrough I've started after my Dalish Elf one rather fell apart with a feeling that I was doing the character all wrong.

The character is a Female City Elf Rogue, Livarion.

Part the First:

Wherein Denerim's most cunning crime syndicate infiltrates a noble house

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I'm woken by my cousin, who has red hair and can therefore be expected to lose her temper at some point. She wants to know if I know what day it it. Well that's easy. It's Armistice Day. Since that's not one of the options I go for something rather neutral. Only that's wrong too. Apparently I'm getting married today. I wish somebody told me these things. Then she tells me he's here already, making it clear she's been checking out my husband behind my back. Already planning the adultery, I suppose. I'd better keep an eye on her.

Then she tells me I have to get up, and leaves. I look around, and I'm not totally impressed by the surroundings or by my clothes. It all looks a bit cheap. Still, there's a chest in the corner so that's a chance to practice my lockpicking skills and obtain some no-doubt-valuable loot. Maybe some armour, weapons, a magic item or two... or perhaps my wedding dress. I put it on, and it's a little better than the ordinary clothes that I was sleeping in. There's an older elf standing around doing nothing. If that's my betrothed, he just watched me changing. It turns out to be my father, who's presumably a dirty old man, who seems a bit miserable. There is apparently no getting out of the wedding he's arranged for me. "It's TRADITIONAL."

And then the whole situation, which was beginning to depress me, takes a turn for the strange. Apparently my mother trained me in combat, which should be kept a secret. Although she's dead (or maybe missing) she was a master thief, and I've inherited the job description. Clearly my father is the head of Denerim's best elven criminal gang, my mother was his best agent, I'm a trained ninja, and the poor surroundings are just a cover. He gives me my mother's boots, which have a powerful enchantment that makes people dislike me less. That might be useful, since my armour consists of a wedding dress and my weapons are a winning smile. Then he basically shoves me out the door. Clearly, this wedding mission is very important. I just wish I knew what I was supposed to do, apart from finding my cousin since it's apparently a double wedding.

Outside I wander around, talking to everyone I can find and accepting their tribute. A gang of drunks require a little persuasion, which I will have to tell my father about, but a couple who claim they knew my mother are much more forthcoming, providing ten (10!) silver pieces which they've spent years saving. An older man has brought a cart, which I assume is full of tribute until I talk to him; it turns out that some human has thrown him out of his home, and that he doesn't want charity. Never let it be said that I give people things they don't want, although it turns it his daughter is willing to beg for my generosity. She takes half the money I'm carrying, and after I talk to my father about this he's willing to show some generosity too; no doubt some of his pimps need new workers.

Eventually I do track down my cousin Soris. He's also been checking on my prospective groom (and his prospective bride), and he seems to think mine is pretty good looking. Since it's clearly all a ploy of my father, I play along and commiserate with him. Then we head back to the centre of the Alienage and speak to an elf who'd earlier indicated an interest in speaking to Soris. It's not about me, so it's a very boring conversation. We also wander down a side alley, and find two elven children who know nothing of their heritage and are playing a game about human heroes. I tell them the totally not made up story of an uncatchable elven master thief who's treasure is hidden all over Ferelden, and they start playing a game about her instead. Clearly there's a need for better education for children in this district.

Then my cousin and I go to meet our bride/groom. Mine may be quite good looking, it's hard to tell, but he also seems like a bit of a wimp. She has a dress that's better than mine, and I hate her instantly. At least she's ugly. We say a few things to each other, with me staying frigidly polite, and then they wander over towards the wedding group. Where as soon as I follow, some human in rather fancier clothing wanders over, gropes one of the bridesmaids, and starts talking about whores. A short exchange of words later, and my cousin bashes him with a jug of ale. You go, girl! Suddenly I'm much less bothered about adultery, because he's a wimp and someone like her would never want much to do with him. I know I don't. Anyway, his cronies threaten us with his daddy and carry him away.

Another human turns up just after this, and Soris suggests we give him a good seeing to. Since he's armed and armoured and we, despite my ninja training, probably don't want to get dirty before the wedding plot can play out, I decide on a diplomatic approach. It turns out he's a Grey Warden, knew my mother, and some old elf-geezer confirms he's a friend of the elves. Any friend of the elves is a friend of mine. Though he does seem a little vague about why he's here. No doubt after the wedding we'll find out more.

And now it's time for the wedding. I still don't know exactly what the plot is that requires I marry this wimp, but no doubt it will soon become clear. We line up on the platform, and a human priestess turns up to perform the blessing. As does lump-on-head noble, this time with guards, who's decided to have a prty and he wants some female entertainers. Suddenly, my father's cunning ploy becomes apparent. The wedding is a cover to infiltrate me (and perhaps some of these other women are expert thieves) onto this nobles estate. There's a bit of conversation, then I try to throw myself on his mercy, in exchange for the others being left behind.

And then he hits me, and knocks me unconscious. That's going to leave a bruise. For that, you die.

Edited by Bluenose, 26 November 2009 - 08:02 AM.

[Bluenose]

Part the Second

Wherein parts of the male anatomy are exploited; people we don't care about die; and someone is very chidlish

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I wake up in what I suspect is normally a storeroom with several of the other elven women from the wedding. One is having religious hysterics, the other bride still has a better dress than me, and my cousin is worried but sensible. I suspect this means they aren't elven ninjas like me, and that means I will have to rescue us on my own. Then the guards arrive and take them away, which means I will have to find them before I can rescue them. And I still don't know what the main mission is! I suppose killing everyone and stealing everything will have to suffice.

Two guards are left with me. I'm just wondering whether they're going to try something when my cousin comes in. Traitor elf who works with humans! Then he slides me a sword which everyone believes I don't know how to use. The guards seem a little displeased with this, and attempt to kill both of us. One of them I decide to use Dirty Fighting on, and he stands their with his head bowed and a little whirly graphic to indicate how stunned he is. Soris has attacked the other, so I employ my other combat tactic (Below the Belt) and the boots which make people hate me less make contact with his groin. And then for good measure I introduce his kidneys to my Borrowed Longsword. Just about the time he drops from this treatment the other guard's swirly lights fade, his head comes up, and we repeat the treatment on him. This was such a fun tactic that I employ it constantly throughout the mansion.

After they drop I loot the bodies. And the rest of the room for good measure. Soris gets a full set of leather armour, a mace, and a shield. I keep my wedding dress, the sword, and a dagger for my left hand. And we find some rat poison. That has to be a quest item, presumably there so that a plague of giant rats can be dealt with properly later in the game. And now it's time to explore the mansion.

My "cunning plan" is not to present the human guards with someone they obviously need to fight. So at every door I halt Soris outside and go through myself in my wedding dress and with no weapons equipped. It works exactly once, when three guards look up when I enter the mess hall and demand I fetch them more ale from the next room. So I do, but the problem with the rat plague will have to be solved by some cunning means since after this I don't have rat poison in my inventory any more. The rest attack me on sight. The tactics are set Soris on one; stun another, and move around to go stabbity-stab to the one Soris is fighting. With him set up to use a healing poultice if he drops below 50% health it works very well. Soris has a nice Shield Bash thing that knocks more than a few opponents down too. And can I say that his war cry. I do like that his war cry, as we carve our way through a human mansion killing the residents, is, "Why can't you humans leave us alone."

Eventually we hit the room where my betrothed is "guarding the hallway", just in time for some human to kill him. Soris seems shocked, or perhaps thinks that I'm shocked or upset. Perhaps he's hoping to comfort the grieving widow, but frankly I don't care at all about what's-his-name. Although I pretend to be grieving so as not to upset my innocent companion. Bioware just didn't manage to make me care about my betrothed. If Soris died, or my cousin Shialli, I'd care about them, but the person the game pretended I was going to marry can die without me caring.

We carry on through the mansion, killing and looting as we go. At one point we kill some poor doggies that have obviously been trained to huny elves. I'm beginning to dislike humans in this game. The only fight worthy of notice is one with an individual who goes by the name of Bodyguard, and who gets shield bashed, kicked in the crotch, stunned, and throughly murdered without managing to do any damage at all. If all humans were like him, elves would rule the world just as we should.

Finally we find the nobleboy who's at the moment of this, along with two of his friends and my cousin Shialli. Shialli is not happy, and the implication is pretty clear of what's happened. Noble boy decides that it's perhaps a good idea to negotiate with the homicidal elf ninja and her accomplice, pointing out to his dumber friend that the blood and entrails on her dress suggest a need to recruit better guards in the future. Of course, his habit of abducting and raping elf women doesn't inspire me to trust him very much. When he realises this, his mood changes. From previously being described as a whore, I now get to be an animal. This does suggest something about his sexual preferences which I don't point out to anyone at the time. Although it might explain why the dogs were so loyal to him.

Once he's dead, Soris outrages me by suggesting I should help my cousin while he finds the other women. I lie, and once he's gone get on with the most important thing - the looting! Some nice stuff here. Then I approach my cousin, and do my best to comfort her. I'd really like an option to hug here here, although since she's already upset about all the blood that might not be a good idea. But I want to do something. Then Soris returns with the other women, and we all leave.

Back at the Alienage, we have a reception committee. The elder is present, that nice Grey Warden Duncan, and some city watch captain. The Watch Captain believes something very bad has been done. Not, of course, abducting and raping elven women. Apparently that's fine with him, but fighting back is a bad thing. I claim full responsibility, secure in the knowledge that my father's other ninjas can rescue me from any prison. And then my father's foresight becomes even more apparent. I still cannot follow his whole scheme, but it obviously requires me to become a member of the Grey Wardens. The mission with the noble was either an audition for them or an excuse for intervention on their part. When Duncan tells the captain he is taking me, an optional response is, "Ha, ha, you can't touch me." It seems very childish. I use it. The captain tells Duncan to take me away, while he deploys his men to protect the citizenry from the wrath of the elven ninjas.

I have one last chance to walk around the Alienage talking to people. They all seem quite pleased with me, but none have any more money for me. The shopkeeper won't even buy my loot from me. And it appears Soris is more interested in marrying his bride, despite the fact that he could come along as my meat-shield. My father retains his calm persona even at this point. And Soris' bride, who's dress is still prettier than mine, has been trying to make Shialli feel better with some success, so I forgive her everything. Shialli meanwhile is willing to speak to me, and declares that she knows I'm going to be a real hero. Still no option to hug her I think that's probably the blood I haven't washed off. Then it's back to Duncan, and bye bye Alienage. Bye bye everyone I've eveer known except for a few humans who I had a temporary acquaintance with at the end of a sword. Hello world. Hello Blight. The elven ninja is coming to get you.

[Bluenose]

Part the third

Wherein we meet royalty; humans hide keys in strange places; and the beginnings of a theory.

Finally we arrive in Ostagar, which would be very impressive if it was all there. If Duncan has kept up a conversation since we left Denerim I am extremely impressed by his stamina. We are met, as is appropriate for such important people, by the king. I am not entirely convinced that he is intelligent or experienced enough for such a role, but he seems reasonably likeable if a little bored by the situations. Hoping to enthuse him I tell him that I've been slaughtering noble's sons to stop them abducting and raping female elves, but he doesn't seem too concerned. Duncan is rather more concerned about the Blight, but he doesn't seem willing to contradict the king in public. He then suggests I have time to spend walking around the camp before meeting one of the other Grey Wardens.

I take advantage of this, and soon everyone in the camp has been pestered by an inquisitive and exquisitely polite elf. This Loghain person I've heard about actually seems to make a pass at me; someone in the infirmary is rather upset and everyone to run away; and a pair of Grey Warden recruits are a little vague about what we are actually going to do in a ritual which I am supposed to take part in. I'm just a little worried, considering how kinky some rituals apparently get, especially since there don't appear to be any other female Grey Wardens around. There's a rather nice old lady mage willing to tell me more than I knew before about magic near to the mage camp, although some armoured humans nearby won't let me in; and also close to the mage camp is a very creepy human who's had his emotions removed somehow. And also nearby is a quartermaster, who is persuaded to be less nasty to elves in the future; although that doesn't stop him trading with me, and based on the prices of things cheating me abominably with a 200% markup.

I pick up two new quests here. The humans have some dogs, and I am persuaded to enter the cage of a sick one and put a muzzle on him. Once I do so, the kennel master seems to think that the dog will like me. I am initially enthusiastic about this idea, but later I remember the human noble boy I killed and his unusual sexual practices. If that's what you have to do to make these animals loyal, I think I'll pass. Apparently if I should be going into the wilds (and that the possibility is mentioned convinces me I will) there's some flowers I can collect to make it feel better. Personally I prefer grapes when I'm sick.

The other quest is slightly odd. A human in a cage insists he's not a deserter, despite the fact he was sneaking around in the middle of the night. When I finally get the story from him I discover something I never knew; humans have a habit of hiding keys in their stomachs! I resolve to inform my father of this next time I write a letter to him, since no doubt it will be useful to know that doors can be opened simply by gutting the nearest human. Thieving will become much mroe efficient this way. I obtain the key by the simple expedient of persuading the nearby guard to give up some of his dinner, and leave with the intention of returning at nightfall. Panic moment; apparently people sneaking around after dark are locked in cages in their underwear. I would prefer this not to happen to me.

Finally I go to find this other Grey Warden, Alistair. He is quite sarcastic. I like him immediately. We exchange some barbed comments, before he suggests we should go to see Duncan. Since Duncan sent me to speak to him, it seems like a rather pointless exercise. Message carrying is not what you recruit elven ninjas for! I'm not absolutely sure about this Alistair. He's nice enough (though sarcastic) but I don't think he's smart. I've observed the same with several other humans. The more likeable a human is, the less intelligent they are. I have insufficient data points to verify the reverse position.

Duncan wants us to go into the Wilds, (what a surprise [/sarcasm]) and obtain three bottles of Darkspawn blood and a set of treaties. I'm sure i've done this sort of fetch and carry quest in a previous lifetime.

[Bluenose]

Part the Fourth

In which someone gets to not copy me; a lot of darkspawn die; and we learn that swooping is bad

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So we're off into the notorious Korcari Wilds, full of dangerous Darkspawn, brutal barbarians and wicked witches. Almost as soon as we arrive we're attacked... by wolves. Which is honestly quite an anticlimax. We brutally slaughter them, Alistair with a sword'n'board style, Ser Jory with a two-handed sword that seems to take a long time between swings, and Daveth fights with the same two-weapon style that I'm using. I can't have someone copying me like this, so I interrogate him after we finish the fight. He's a local boy who ran away to denerim and became a pickpocket, who made the mistake of trying to pick Duncan's pocket and got drafted into the Grey Wardens as a result. Investigating further, it appears that he's pretty good with a bow and other missile weapons, so I give him a shortbow from the party loot and make him stop cramping my style. There's only room for one backstabbing rogue around here.

For good measure I question the other members of the party. Ser Jory is a kinght from REdcliff who won a tournament and was picked by Duncan as a potential recruit. He's married with a child on the way, which pretty much guarantees a tragic death and some later scene where I try to console his grieving widow. Alistair was a Templar, part of the military arm of the local church who are also trained to hunt and kill mages, and he's got a serious case of being snarky but amusing.

Nearby there's a human cleric dead in shallow water. A letter explains that he thought it would be a good idea to go and preach at the barbarians in the Darkspawn-filled Wilds. This is suspicious, as surely not even a human is that stupid. Someone must have driven him out here to die, as part of a plot to, well, do something. Step One, send cleric out into Wilds to die; Step Two, ?; Step Three, profit!

When I read his letter, it appears that there's more out here. And possibly some neat treasure somewhere. Who cares about the Blight, or wants to find vials of darkspawn blood and some silly old treaties? I'm going to find this treasure, no matter how long it takes. It doesn't seem to bother the others, so we wander around looking for Chasind trail signs and particular landmarks. We also find a nearly dead soldier, and bandage him up so he can get home. Jory decides this is a good time to express his native nervousness and starts complaining, until Alistair tells him that they're just stragglers and he'd know if a lot were around - which Daveth regards as a good thing since we'll know when we're about to die. He may be joking, in which case he has to stop as there's only capacity for one snarky joker in the party at a time by union rules. Wandering around, we purely co-incidentally kill enough Darkspawn to get three vials of their blood several times over. There's a lot of them about. Some of them are also invisible darkspawn rogues, which I think is very unfair. They're still vulnerable to being kicked in the testicles, though.

The toughest fight is at a bridge, where one darkspawn mage is failing to imitate a troll. It's under the bridge, dearie. Daveth and I sneak up and backstab him a lot, which I think wasn't in his plans for the day particularly since Dirty Fighting stuns him and stops him running away. There's a rather large ambush here, along with several traps, which I think mister mage was trying to get us to walk into while chasing him. We massacre them, and then finally find the last trail sign and the Chasing treasure cache. There's some rather nice loot in there, including a helmet that looks as if it would be useful for any melee character. I plonk it on Al's head, since I'm not strong enough to use it myself and anyway it looks pretty silly and would ruin my hairstyle.

Eventually we wander over to the ruin of the Grey Warden base. There's a damaged chest there, which seems to be the only item you can interact with. Once I do, a cut-scene starts. A woman in clothing that might be a trifle cool for the time of year comes along and starts acting like she owns the place. Both Daveth and Jory seem quite intimidated by her, insisting she's a Witch. Alistair tries to match her for wit and snark, but gets defeated. Which is where he claims that swooping is bad, after she asks if we're worried that barbarians will swoop down on us. In the end, I try a combination of politeness and wit, and she explains that her mother took the treaties. So after a few comments from the peanut gallery I ask politely if she could take us to her mama. Which she does. And she also tells us her name is Morrigan, so she's presumably an ancient celtic battle goddess. Or maybe something less cool.

Her mother seems quite nice, if a little batty. She had the treaties to look after them, or at least that's what she claims. Alistair at least seems pretty surprised by this, although he's been rude to both of them since we met. I suspect it's the Templar anti-mage training. And then Morrigan gets told, by her mother, that since she'd brought us here as guests she had to take us home, which I don't think she was expecting and which she doesn't exactly seem enthusiastic about - although we do end up back inside the camp after dark anyway.

[Bluenose]

Part the Fifth

Wherein a doggie starts getting better; a small robbery takes place; and a planning session goes really well.

First things first. We've recovered the vials of darkspawn and the important Grey Warden treaties for Duncan. So it's obviously a good idea to wander off and complete some other quests, since I'm not certain we'll have time afterwards and Duncan's requests are obviously less important.

First, I take the flower we found back to the kennel master. This makes him very happy, because it's going to make the poorly doggie better. This makes me happy, because that apparently means I'll get a doggie of my own. I look around for a stick to throw, but then he tells me I'll have to wait until tomorrow. When we'll be fighting a battle. If this human takes advantage of the distraction this will cause to give my doggie to someone else he will be decorating my daggers with his lungs.

Next, I try to sneak over to the chest which that creepy not-really-a-mage person was standing near, so that I can use the key. Unfortunately I forget to tell Alistair and Jory to stay behind. While Daveth is pretty good at sneaking, with these two it's clank clank clank all the way. Fortunately there's no-one there, and I suppose even if we were seen no-one could plausibly claim we were sneaking around the camp and lock us in a cage in our underwear. No matter how good I'd look. There's some nice loot to be had here.

Since the quartermaster is still open for business, I go over to him and sell a lot of the loot from our little expedition. I buy a backpack, because we had run rather low on carrying capacity and I suspect we'll do so again. I also buy a few things from his "special stock", and everything he has that is described as a Gift. I'm sure I'll find someone I need to bribe with them.

Now that the important tasks are out of the way, we can go to see Duncan. He's interested in the women who had the treaties, but it will have to wait until after the ritual is completed. We're to follow Alistair over to the old temple, which turns out to be the place he was sassing a mage when I first met him. I am getting less and less impressed by Ser Jory. It's not just that he doesn't know how to spell Ser, that's endemic in Ferelden, but he's also not exactly an inspiring companion. Daveth is much more impressive despite being basically a thief, since he seems much more willing to die to protect Ferelden than Jory does.

The ritual of The Joining involves drinking darkspawn blood. This doesn't sound terribly hygenic, but considering some of the others things I've been doing there's not much point complaining. It's fortunate that elves are naturally hardy and resistant to disease. Alistair recites a poem which I'm sure is meant to be very inspiring and moving. A minute later though I've forgotten all of it, which is somewhat embarrassing.

First to drink is Daveth, and he drinks, throws his head back, his eyes turn solidly white, and then he dies. Apparently some people have an adverse reaction to drinking darkspawn blood. Of course Jory promptly becomes convinced he's going to be one of them. Duncan, who's seen this before and while sad isn't as shocked as me, approaches him to drink. Jory draws his rather large sword and starts to refuse. At which point Duncan guts him with his off-hand dagger. Which has me wondering what to say when, as seems inevitable, we meet his pregnant wife later in the game and she wants to know what happened to him, and which also doesn't exactly encourage me to refuse when he offers me a drink a few seconds later.

That darkspawn blood has a real kick to it. I don't even remember lying down. And the only thing I can remember is imagining a dragon was roaring at me. But at least I'm still alive, if somewhat hung over. Duncan and Alistair share a few of their stories about Joinings, which make it apparent there's some risk involved, and they give me a nice necklace with a vial of blood, in case I ever feel thirsty. Duncan then invites us to the war council with the king and Loghain, which is being held just down the stairs.

The meeting doesn't exactly seem like a success to me. The king and Loghain aren't happy with each other, Loghain seems to dislike the Grey Wardens, the leader of the mages thinks they can do everything themselves, and the leader of the clerics doesn't want the mages to do anything. This bodes well for the course of the battle tomorrow. Except that the battle is this morning, and the only rest I've had since since yesterday was when I was passed out on the ground from the Joining ritual. I don't imagine Alistair has had much more (see, I do think about other people occasionally). Which means it's a good job our task is the simple one of waiting for the right moment and then burning down a tower, or lighting a fire on it, or something like that. Alistair will remember the details. I'm just here for the stabbing.

[Bluenose]

Part the Sixth

In which plans go awry; and the darkspawn are revealed to be in league with IKEA.

Once we're finished the strategy meeting, and talked to Duncan, and Alistair has tried to depress morale by asking a blessing of the Maker in a tone that almost suggests he doesn't expect to see Duncan again, we set off towards the Tower of Ishaal - which is at the other end of the ruins, over a really impressive bridge. I 'recovered'' a few items from chests/plants in the area earlier.

When we get to the bridge, a cut scene starts. The army assembles, priests start blessing them, we have a little tour of the defences, etc. The Darkspawn arrive, try to look intimidating, some of the humans are intimidated, then the Darkspawn charge, archers start shooting, the doggies are set loose on them, and finally the army of Ferelden is ordered to charge, which they do in the "Disorderly Mob" style that has historically been preferred by disciplined and effective armies nowhere, particularly when it lets them abandon their prepared defensive positions.

Meanwhile I'm watching with Alistair from the bridge, when a very rude human barges between us and pushes me in the back. It's a remarkable coincidence that as we hurry along the bridge towards the tower, my sword swings out to the right as I run and entirely accidentally hamstrings him. I'm rather impressed by the darkspawn here, since they're capable of bombarding the bridge with exploding fireballs all the way from the forest below. Still, we get to the other side unhurt, which is more than I can say for most of the archers.

Things start to look up when two people turn up outside the tower claiming that the darkspawn have captured it, coming up through the tunnels. Impressive guarding there boys. I'm just a little startled by Alistair's insistence on taking it back. Since the two humans have been rejoicing in the names Tower Guard and Circle Mage, I as a generous elf decide to give them real names. The guard becomes Eric of Ilfracombe, and the mage is Ernie the Cunning. They don't seem terribly grateful, but what can you expect.

We kill some darkspawn including at least one elite, and do some nice looting. There are some nice chests in the area, as well as some of the plants for poison/healing. I'm delighted to discover that Ernie knows alchemy, and I promptly exploit this talent to create a pile of healing poultices (they're poultices, not potions, and the fact that you need bottles to make them is pure coincicdence). Then I use my poison-making to give myself a few advantages for the next few fights. And we enter the tower proper.

I leave the others in the anteroom for a moment, to scout out the first area. One trap is easy enough to disarm, and I find a fair-sized group of archers and a spellcaster. The spellcaster discovers the hard way that being stabbed in the back with two poisoned weapons can make your day miserable. Then I run back into the anteroom, despite a hail of arrows being shot at me. When the darkspawn follow, it's time to let everyone loose to kill them, which we do in quick time. Although I'm rather annoyed that Eric keeps abandoning the missile weapon he's skilled and equipped with to charge into melee, especially since it's a narrow doorway and he makes it rather cramped.

Looting afterwards we come across a chest that I can?t open! This is terrible. All the stabbing must have cramped my fingers. I resolve to return later and deal with the treacherous thing. More rooms follow with more killing and looting. On one floor, I sneak over to where there are some ballistae pointing towards a group of darkspawn. This proves to be bad for their health, good for everyone elses, and great fun. On another, there's a room with some doggies in cages, and a lever which can let them out to the great detriment of several darkspawn. Some more darkspawn get lured into the room, where it's a lot easier to deal with them with help. Finally we get to the top floor with the beacon, which it just might be needs lighting by now. Unfortunately there's a slight problem with doing so.

That problem is spelt Ogre. It seems to be a little annoyed with us, probably because we've interrupted it's lunch. That unfortunately can't be helped, but there's a chance that indigestion will affect it's fighting ability if it has to fight on a full stomach. Before the fight though I take a few moments to contemplate something that bothers me. The doors in this tower are roughly human-sized. The ogre is quite a lot bigger. At first I can't imagine how it got up here. And then it occurs to me. This is a flatpack ogre, brought in in pieces and assembled here. I resolve to find Ikea's headquarters in Ferelden and destroy this nest of darkspawn sympathisers.

I don?t even need to borrow Alistair?s helmet. If I could bear to wear the horrible thing, that is, I would have employed it with my Below the Belt trick for a head butt to the balls. The ogre goes down like a chump, I'm really not impressed by it, though I think there might have been some luck involved. But a combination of Alistair's shield bash, Ernie's paralyse spell, Eric hitting with some of his special shots, and my Dirty Fighting to stun it leaves the ogre dead with hardly any damage to the party. I do get a rather nice ?leap on it?s chest and stab it through the eye socket with a flaming sword? cinematic out of it. Whereupon even before I can loot the ogre Alistair demands we light the beacon. Priorities, my dear boy, priorities.

Then I light the beacon. Go on, Loghain, get stuck in!

Err, Loghain, I think you mean attack not retreat.

Loghain?

Though it appears that the soldiers of Ferelden can move in an organised fashion, if they?re running away.

The rest of the battles a bit of a downer. It doesn?t looking to be going too well anyway, but then the king gets himself pwned by an ogre; guess he should have kept us with him after all, we can handle ogres. So can Duncan, mind you, with a really neat trick using his weapons to climb it and rip it?s heart out. I make a mental note not to upset Duncan, though I figured this was a good idea after Ser Jory. I?d be slightly more impressed if he remembered to take his weapons with him afterwards when he goes to cuddle the king. It might help a bit when there?s a lot of charging darkspawn around.

And then the darkspawn break into the top of the tower and shoot me full of arrows. Is this the end for the elven ninja?

[Bluenose]

Part the Seventh

In which we meet a batty old lady, a witch, a doggie, and some idiotic bandits.

I wake up in bed in my underwear, in a place I don't recognise. In fact, just like any other morning after a hard night out.

Morrigan is there. and after a little confusion when she seems surprised that I remember who she is she gets on with an explanation of how I turn out to be alive after being shot full of arrows at the top of a high tower. I am not entirely sure that I believe the explanation that her mother turned into a giant bird and plucked Alistair and me from the top of the tower, but I have as yet no better explanation. I can accept though that it's her mother's healing that kept me alive. In the subsequent conversation I detect some slight dislike for her mother in Morrigan, as well as a certain amount of disdain for Alistair. Although she seems to like me, and I rather like her mercenary attitude.

Eventually though it is time to get up. I rise, and after trying and failing to open a chest (that's another that will not yield to my superlative skills, I begin to feel inadequate) I leave the hut by it's only door. Alistair seems fairly pleased to see me, though a little surprised. I'm not sure that it isn't slightly insulting, somehow, for him to act shocked that I survived something that he was nearly killed by. We talk for a few moments, and then are interrupted by Morrigan's mother who finally introduces herself as Flemmeth; the Flemmeth, apparently, the really famous one who I've never heard of before, although a codex entry will be blinking away madly after this conversation.

The rest of the conversation is controlled more or less entirely by Flemmeth. She has a goal, the defeat of the Blight and the Archdemon that is behind it. She has two Grey Wardens, who's job it is to defeat Blights. She has looked after the treaties that allow Grey Wardens to recquisition armies from all over the place. So she gives us our orders, gives us the means to carry them out, and then gives us the thing she holds most precious in the world, her daugher. Apparently Flemmeth wants payment for keeping us alive despite the fact that she also wants us to defeat an Archdemon, and she rather thinks we'll find Morrigan useful since she's a powerful mage. All this comes as a bit of a surprise to Morrigan, but questioning her it appears she does rather like idea of travelling, she just wasn't expecting it now. I decide we should take her, agree to look after her, and set off down the path to the village of Lothering, which Morrigan is apparently familiar with.

Immediately after we get a cut scene. Back in Ferelden that treacherous worm Loghain (henceforth TTW) is rallying people to fight the Blight. Which is pretty hypocritical of him, as one of the audience points out. It also appears that he's appointed himself regent on behalf of the Queen, if he can get away with it. It seems likely that he can't.

Immediately after, we cut back to us, as we walk past the ruins of Ostagar. And here comes my doggy! Running through the ruins with a lot of enthusiasm, and then coming up to me and letting us know that there are darkspawn nearby. Isn't he a good boy.

The darkspawn are led by a real idiot. Rather than doing anything vaguely intelligent like ambushing us, he comes out in the open with a few followers and makes a throat-cutting gesture at us. I get the feeling he doesn't know who we are. He does last longer than his followers, mostly because we concentrate on his followers and Morrigan has a great freeze spell that she uses on them as soon as we've weakened them a bit. Though I mark her performance down a bit because she doesn't like my doggie as much as she should. And I mark Alistair down because he's rather too enthusiastic about my doggie. Mine, Alistair, mine! I call him Shep.

We carry on towards Lothering. On the highway just short of the village, we run into a group of bandits. The one who starts talking to us tries to ask for a toll, for upkeep of the Imperial Highway. Alistair takes a dislike to him, and Morrigan feels insulted. For some reason when I suggest that it's quite a dangerous job he's in he believes that it's some sort of threat. When I point out that we're Grey Wardens, the one who's clearly the brains of the group says that it might be dangerous to fight the people who killed the king. I don't think that was us, actually. But it does give the talkative one a reason that he takes to back down on the toll-business. And with a little prompting from the smart one, he's even willing to make a donation to help out the Grey Wardens.

After we've taken this most generous donation, we carry on down the highway. There are a couple of chests there, which I decide are clearly there for us to loot. Unfortunately the bandits seem to take offence at this. Some people can be so mean about sharing their wealth. We defeat them handily, I suggest that banditry would be better if they had a change of scenery, and we wave goodbye to some annoying bandits.

[Bluenose]

Part the Eighth

Wherein there's more talking than fighting, and I start pondering irrelevancies.

As we head down the exit ramp from the Imperial Highway into Lothering, Alistair decides that he?s now allowed to speak to us without being spoken too first. This sets Morrigan off, and soon they?re sniping at each other in fine style. It appears that Shep is the best behaved of my minions, and I resolve to copy what I?ve done with him with any others who start misbehaving. That will mean a rap on the nose when they misbehave, and plenty of tummy-rubs and compliments when they?re being good. I am sure this will be successful.

Once the conversation between Alistair and Morrigan is completed, for now, we move on to more significant matters. Alistair wishes to know my plans for the future. I try to explain the concept of killing-things-and-taking-their-stuff, but apparently Alistair wants a more sophisticated plan. He tells me about all the different groups that could help us, although despite that clear fact that he?s senior to me he isn?t willing to make the decision himself. This is understandable since I am clearly a superior decision maker. Morrigan suggests attacking Loghain directly, but I think I?ll pass for now.

When we actually head into the village we are accosted by someone who hasn?t realised the benefits of breathing properly and is wearing a full-head helmet in the middle of the day. He is one of the local templars, and is able to inform us of a few things that are happening locally, and also suggests that if we talk to his boss in the local church there might be a reward for driving off the bandits. I am always interested in getting a reward for something I would have done anyway, and head that way.

On the way we?re rudely interrupted by an argument between a merchant and a churchwoman. Apparently he is engaged in price-gouging, and predictably Alistair and Morrigan promptly take opposite sides over who is in the right. Rather than alienate the most powerful local organisation on behalf of a merchant who isn?t even offering much money, I attempt to find a solution that will let him benefit without annoying everyone else, since I might have reasons to sell or buy things myself and a lynched merchant isn?t much use to me. Morrigan then makes a suggestion. She suggests that the darkspawn will be impressed by what I?ve done, and then her approval drops. Clearly she doesn?t want the darkspawn to be scared of me! Although come to think of it, scared darkspawn are more likely to run away and we don?t get any experience for them that way. That is very clever thinking on her part.

Just outside the local temple is a chanter, which is a type of human priest who only talks with the words of the holy book. And you aren?t allowed to cheat by only using some of them, you have to come up with a whole line. He points me in the direction of a job board, where you can take on tasks in exchange for pay, and I grab the kill local bandits one without realising it refers to a different group of bandits. It?s fortunate that it isn?t the ones I chased off anyway, since I?m not entirely happy with the idea of chasing them round the countryside for a small amount of money.

Inside I make contact with the head of what passes for a military force locally, since the lord is one of TTW?s sympathisers and fled on our approach. He rewards us for chasing off the bandits, and also passes on some information about what?s happening. Apparently TTW is claiming that the Grey Wardens killed the king at Ostagar. I don?t think it was us, unless that ogre was an infiltrator. The templar is also doubtful and rather sympathetic to our position, though his idea of offering help involves giving us a key to a cabinet which holds several healing poultices. Presumably he expects us to need them. We also return his comrade?s locket and a letter to one of Arl Eamon?s men, who is on a quest of sorts to find a sacred relic. Mentally I cross Eamon off the list of people likely to help us, since he seems to need a miracle if he?s to live.

Wandering around town, I?m able to tell an elven family that the bandits who robbed them have been driven off, though I suspect the pet lamb may have been lunch. I make three traps for a rather nervous woman who claims to be scared of strangers, but who wants to copy her neighbour in adding some traps to her fields to discourage intruders. And an elderly woman who lots of people claim is in charge wants us to make three healing poultices for her from materials that can be found outside the village. I consider pointing out the amount I?ve found inside it, but pointing out other people?s inadequacies tends to upset them and there was a reward, which Morrigan promptly helps us gain. I?m starting to wonder why healing poultices (they?re not potions, it says so) come in bottles. It must be hard to pour them out.

Finally we get to one of the most important buildings in the world, the pub. Someone who must be sick of it, since he?s specifically been named ?Helpful Farmer? by his parents, seems like he?d be worth talking to. He complains about the crowding with refugees, the problems with bandits, the fact that darkspawn are coming to eat them all, and a group of soldiers who are causing trouble in the pub. In fact, he?s a typical farmer.

We enter the pub anyway. I can?t see any reason why a group of probable deserters would want to pick a fight with heavily armed travellers like us.

[Bluenose]

Part the Ninth

Wherein some of TTW's men learn a lesson; bandits take a bit of a kicking; and some people get a little too optimistic about their abilities.

Last time a human noble wanted to abduct me he came himself. TTW won't even do that courtesy, simply leaving a group of soldiers to make the grab. Clearly we'll have to teach him a lesson. In the meantime, one of the Chantry sisters intervenes in our little dispute. She can fight pretty well, mind you. Although she does seem to be a little bossy, not wanting me to slaughter the soldiers afterwards. Looking round at the floor, three are down anyway. The survivors can go back to TTW to explain their failure, and I hope they enjoy it.

Meanwhile the sister introduces herself as Leliana, and insists that she's coming with us since we're Grey Wardens. When I ask why, she tells me that God has her on speed-dial and told her to go with us.

Moving swiftly along, it appears that she's a bard and skilled with a bow, so I give her Alistair's which he never uses.

There's an Australian merchant here, but no-one is arguing with him so I don't have to upset Morrigan. He wants some poison, and I realise this is the person who is encouraging laying traps in fields. It's not my problem if he's poisons himself, so I agree to get him some. There's also a representative of a group of mercenaries, who wants to recruit me for various tasks. One of which involves crossing the bridge and talking to someone in the Chantry, clearly far beyond the capabilities of their local representative. I make a note not to employ this group of mercenaries for any tasks involving water.

Leaving the village, there's a cage with a rather large individual inside. When I ask him who he is, he tells me he's "Sten of the Barasaud, the Vanguard of the Qunari Peoples". You can definitely hear the capital letters as he speaks. Both Morrigan and Leliana are in favour of letting him out, despite the fact that he's an admitted mass-murderer. I'm not sure about this, but given the way Morrigan is looking at him I don't think she'd take no for an answer.

The rest of the area north of Loathering is infested with bandits, and a few spiders for variety. And a tree, which Shep decides is a good landmark to declare this his territory. I must be careful about taking him indoors in future. The bandits get shot repeatedly by Leliana, magically weakened by Morrigan, and ripped up by Shep, all of whom seem quite happy with the process. I am not so sure about the process. I might not be entirely suited for this tanking lark. Where's Alistair when you need him, the lazy layabout.

We find another locked chest. I'm just about to assault it when Leliana claims she can open then. Go on then, show me how it's done.

She does.

I think I might hate her, if it wasn't for that gorgeous accent.

Back to Loathering, and after a quick trip to the pub to hand over the poison and pick up the reward it's off to the Chantry. I pick up the reward for the bandits, and grab two more quests from the board outside. Inside, I visit the recruit the mercenaries can't get for themselves. He seems rather resigned to his fate. Thinking about it I can see why. They can't cross water or enter a church, and people don't really want to work for them. The Blackstone Irregulars are clearly vampires. Maybe they would be worth recruiting after all.

I speak to the head of the Chantry about Sten, who asks Leliana whether we should let Sten out since clearly she's known me for all of an hour (or less) and can therefore be assumed to have a full understanding of my character. Leliana says yes (I wonder if god told her about that, although she's very discreet with her mobile phone if so). After which, we get a key to let Sten of the Barasaud the Vanguard of the Qunari Peoples out of his cage. Although High Priestess hits us up for a donation, so I can't count this as a complete victory.

We go and fetch Sten, and he joins the group. I decide he can do the tanking in my place, and we go looking for a dead bear and some rabid women. We find a dead woman and some angry bears, which I think can be spun as roughly equivalent. We leave a large pack of dead wolves, although unlike the ones in the Korcari Wilds these don't drop sellable furs. Sten totally fails to tank them properly, leaving me to do that job myself.

On the way back, some of the refugees intercept us. They've heard we're Grey Wardens. I am about to offer them a job, when they say they're after the bounty on my head. Since I'm rather attached to it, I decline. Whereupon an admittedly sizeable group of refugess decide that they can take a Grey Warden, Bard, Mage, and a Sten. This was perhaps not their best idea. Although I got to level 7 after the fight, so I approve of it. Now I need to find osmeone who can teach me a speciality. One that isn't bard, because two bards will spend all their time fighting for the spotlight.

We head back to Loathering, pick up the money from the Chantry quest board, sell of some rather worthless loot, and now it's time to head back to the Imperial Highway and start picking up my armies.

[Bluenose]

Part the Tenth

Wherein we get our first scout badges; presents are given and words exchanged; spies are identified; and I decide to do the easy quest first..

Just as we're leaving, there's one more fight. A few darkspawn are annoying a dwarven merchant and his son. After we finish the darkspawn, he and his son get on with clearing up, saying that having more to do with Grey Wardens would be too exciting for him.

Off into the wide world, and the first thing that happens is that I have a dream. Of a dragon, or something that looks like one, and a rather large number of darkspawn. They seem like they're in a bad mood. Being woken in the middle of the night leaves me in one too. Alistair explains that this is something that happens to Grey Wardens, so I suppose I should get used to it. Apparently the dragon-thing is the Archdemon we've heard so much about, and it's now doomed to die horribly for interrupting my beauty sleep. But it is fun to be camping, which I've never done before, and I award myself a camping badge which as Ferelden's most important Grey Warden I'm sure is within my rights.

Now that we're in camp, I take the opportunity to try to get to know my companions better. It's not that I haven't been talking to them, but now I get into more conversations until they have nothing more to say to me. Morrigan is hanging around on the edge of the camp; she isn't the most sociable person I've ever met, although she does have some interesting stories, perhaps even true ones, about her mother and the legends that have sprung up around her. Alistair is a bastard, although he's not saying who his father is, and while he is quite religious I don't think he liked the idea of being a Templar; I get on his good side by saying nice things about Duncan, who I think he may have been in love with. Sten doesn't talk much, or want to talk much, which leaves me rather stuck with him. Once I start talking with Leliana it's not exactly easy to stop her, but she does have some interesting things to say about being in the Chantry, and gives me a rather vague answer about what she was before she came to Lothering; a travelling minstrel who'd picked up some fighting skills on the way is one thing, but her codex entry is much more worrying and uses words like spy and assassin.

Shep is a dog. He doesn't have much to say. On the other hand, he's happy to nip Alistair when Alistair tries to steal his lunch. What a clever dog! I decide to have a play with the gifts, to see who likes various things, and give Shep a bone that I picked up somewhere as a reward for biting Alistair.

I decide to do a little experimenting with the gifts. After a while, a few things become apparent. Leliana likes religious items, which isn't a total surprise to me. Morrigan likes fancy jewellery, and given the quantity I have is soon my bestest friend in the whole world (which is probably a good thing, because I think she may not like everything I do but at least I can bribe her into happiness). Alistair likes statuettes of women, which slilghtly puzzles me given his sexual preferences. Sten doesn't like anything that I have very much, and I'm beginning to be a bit frustrated that I can't find a way to make him like me. I suspect weapons or armour will appeal to him, but none of the vast quantities of this gear I have say that they're gifts.

Wandering around the camp I also come across the dwarf merchant, the one who claimed travelling with us would be too exciting for him. He offers to give us a discount on his goods in exchange for protection on the road, and he also tells me his son can enchant items for me. The son is pretending to be stupid, but I see through their ploy at once. Clearly they're spies for the dwarven nation, keeping an eye on the Grey Wardens of Ferelden, and the son is a secret mastermind who also happens to be an master magician. Rather than send them away and have them following us secretly, I agree to let them stay where the necessity of keeping up the appearance of common merchants will interfere with their other activities.

There's also another visitor to our camp, who is looking for Grey Warden help. Join the queue. Apparently when the Wardens were being thrown out of Ferelden under a previous monarch one of his ancestors was the commander and his noble family lost all their land in the course of the events. He wants us to go back to the old keep, which has been lost, and find out the truth about what happened to restore his family honour. I tell him I'll think about it. It's not as if the Blight is urgent, after all.

Now there's a particularly difficult decision to make. Where should we go first in this quest to collect a set of armies? I think about the dwarves but I'm not sure that I want to start dealing with short people who live underground until I have a better helmer, and since they've already started spying on me I expect to need a strong position to negotiate with them. I reject the Dalish elves, an uncivilised group who catch and eat their own food rather than buying it at the market like civilised people. That leaves the mages or Arl Eamon. Arl Eamon is apparently ill and has knights all round the country looking for a miracle. Hopefully he'll be better able to help us once they've found it, as it's pretty unlikely that something like that would be left up to a Grey Warden who might be busy with other things. So Mages it is. I expect this to be dealt with quickly and easily, and then we'll deal with the harder tasks.

Edited by Bluenose, 01 December 2009 - 07:49 AM.

[Bluenose]

Part the Eleventh

Wherein I discover just how obsessive Templars are; another Templar decides that he doesn't need to learn how to swim; and mages turn out to be a bunch of wierdos

I decide that the best group to take to see the mages contains Alistair, who may understand better than me how the Templars think; Leliana, since she's a bard and presumably quite diplomatic; and Shep, who I can rely on to mark his territory if necessary. I'm a bit nervous about taking Morrigan, who's an apostate mage, to a place that will be crawling with people who want to kill her. Sten meanwhile has managed to insult me by suggesting it's impossible for me to be both a woman and a Grey Warden, since women can't fight. He can stay and sulk in camp, the meanie.

Arriving opposite the island, my first thought is that it's a very impressive symbol these mages live in. My second, wandering around and talking to peopple, is that it's not just mercenary vampires who aren't willing to take on jobs that involve walking more than a few feet. A representative of the Mages Collective, apparently a secret society that isn't all that secret, has got a variety of jobs for me one of which involves beating up someone who's standing within earshot. So I do, despite the presence of two bodyguards, and pick up the reward less than a minute after taking on the task.

On the other hand, the bad news is that they're not allowing people to go and visit the mages for some reason. I wander down the pier to talk to a Templar, who confirms this in a rather smug fashion. He becomes rather less smug when I point out the interaction between people in full plate armour, the water depth beneath piers, and annoyed Grey Wardens, and soon we're over on the island inside the phallic symbol.

There we find a group of agitated Templars, including their leader Greagoir. He claims that the some of mages have unleashed demons and therefore he has to kill them all, and seems rather disappointed that permission to do so hasn't been given to him yet despite his request. Honestly, these Templars are obsessed with mages. They see a mage behind anything and everything that goes wrong, and regard killing one as the solution for everything. It's quite obvious to me that they're wrong and darkspawn are behind the problem.

I remain polite though, and eventually Greagoir allows that I can go further into the giant phallic symbol if I really want to try and solve the problem myself. Which if I didn't would rather make coming here pointless. Provided I can find the first enchanter he will let me out. So I visit their quartermaster, buy a few poultices-in-a-bottle, and head through the great doors. Out of the corner of my eye I catch one of the Templars shaking his head and smirking - he will learn not to underestimate elven ninja grey wardens!

The lowest level of the phallic symbol is occupied by the apprentice quarters. Obviously important people like walking up lots of stairs. There are a few mildly annoying creatures there, which represent very little obstacle to my crack team. Alistair encourages them to attack him, Shep howls at them, Leliana shoots them with her longbow, and I wander around introducing the 'boots of making people hate me less' to their groins from behind and doing some stabbing afterwards. Which is surprisingly effective even on the female enemies and demons.

Wandering through the lower level, we eventually find a group of mages who aren't dead and don't start trying to kill us on sight. One of them is Wynne, who I met at Ostagar. She explains that yet another Ostagar survivor is behind the problem, and doesn't seem terribly enthusiastic to hear that the Templars are interested in killing everyone in the phallic symbol. She wants to stop all the mages dying, and since it's the only way I'm getting out of this place so do I. Which means I have a new party member, perhaps temporarily although given her entry in the Codex I suspect not, and have to leave poor Shep behind where he won't be able to chew up my enemies - although he won't go hungry as there are children available.

Further round the circle, we finally get to the stairs up, although the basement appears to be sealed. There are a few more enemies on the way, and we also keep finding various notes detailing all the strange things mages like to do. I could probably do some very odd things in the library with some of the notes on summoning, for instance. Then there's the notes about statues pointing swords in various directions which is a bit of a puzzle considering all the ones I've found have shields. Maybe they're higher up, which is where we're going next.

[Bluenose]

Part the Twelfth

Wherein I steal from powerful people. and the first meeting of Denerim's Lyriumholics Anonymous is called to order

The first floor had the apprentices quarters, and some rather paranoid Templars. The second floor has the quarters for full mages. My first thought is that this is a good thing. More powerful enemies means more experience for killing them, and better loot. Plus the amusement of watching Alistair struggling with the top of his healing poultice bottles while fighting three enemies, and squeezing it too hard so half of the poultice ends up on the floor. I make a note that he will have to buy his own sunscreen if we visit the beach, since I don't want him wasting mine.

In the first room, we meet one of those really creepy people the mages keep around to enchant things for them after they've been semi-lobotomised. When he went downstairs earlier during a break in the fighting he found Wynne's barrier and since he didn't want to disturb people he came back upstairs and started tidying up the mess. I'd admire the calmness, if it wasn't for the fact that it's enforced magically. As it is, I'm not going to try to persuade him to move to safety when Wynne can't.

I'm beginning to become just a little annoyed by the layout of this place. It's circular, with a main corridor running round a large central room and with other room on the outside. Given the position of the stairs, it's highly defensible but getting to a higher floor means going all the way round the building. Presumably the higher level mages who live on the upper floors have developed really strong leg muscles, although this doesn't show on Wynne. What makes this awkward for me is that really the corridors are a good way to channel enemies who are superior in numbers. This is fine for Wynne and Leliana, who contribute from the second rank. It's not bad for Alistair, who's heavily armoured and using a shield so is really difficult to take down. Unfortunately I'm a rogue in studded leather armour with a sword and dagger, the width of the corridors is such that Alistair can't block the whole of it, and this means I'm doing far more standing toe-to-toe with people who are more heavily armoured than me than is good for my health. It's a complete waste of my talents for backstabbing and I start mulling over a way to stop it happening, and also on ways to stop Wynne becoming a lyrium addict due to the amount of potions she has to drink to keep up with casting heal spells on me.

While pondering this, I help wreck several mages bedrooms, kill some demonic librarians in the library, and find the statues with swords that various notes have directed me towards. Pressing things randomly on them leads to me getting zapped magically, but with all the notes in hand I find the right order, only to discover there's a statue missing. I wonder if demons like eating stone.

We also have an interesting encounter with a group of blood mages. No doub they're very scary people if you try to face them head on, but when you spend most of the fight stabbing them in the kidneys with poisoned weapons it seems to make them much easier to handle. No doubt the fact that the blood they power their spells with is leaking all over the place distracts them. One attempts to surrender, having changed her mind about the whole experience. Somehow I have doubts about her repentance considering the alternative we presented to surrendering, and both Alistair and Wynne don't seem to think much of her. Leliana believes the Chantry would give her a chance, and I decide to let her live for now. If she can get out of here past the guards and locked doors and then find some clerics willing to take in a blood mage then she ceases to be my problem, and if she can't do those things she's still not my problem. It's not as if she's a darkspawn, unless it's a very clever disguise.

Checking loot has been slightly less fulfilling than I expected. While there's some good stuff to be had, apart from the plethora of not-so-secret secret notes, some of it is rather puzzling at first glance. Many of the rooms, which are supposedly occupied by senior mages, contain storage which holds apprentice gear. whether these are souvenirs of a misspent youth, reminders of past deeds, or gifts for favourite students is not clear, but there's certainly a lot of it.

I steal everything that isn't nailed down, with Leliana's help on some of the locked containers.

There's one more fight before we find the stairs up, and this is the one where I lose patience with Wynne. Yet again she runs out of mana to cast spells long before the end, leaving us reliant on poultice in a bottle and lots of stabbing. Time for an intervention. Or more specifically I check her spells menu and have a really aggressive edit of her tactics screen. Apparently there are two priorities for her which involve casting high-mana cost spells either when someone attacks her (not something that happens in every fight because I keep her at the back, but she does it under missile attack too) or when any of us attack something. Since these two things have meant we've gone through every lyrium potions I've collected in the rest of the game, which Morrigan never even got close to doing, I edit those two lines out and replace them with something less costly. Such as healing Alistair, targeting anything attacking Alistair, and some basic if someone attacks me blast them stuff. It had better work, else she'll be leaving on the third floor; even if I have to make a hole in the wall and call it a window.

[Bluenose]

Part the between Twelfth and Fourteenth

Wherein I take a rest on a cold floor; find a use for corridors; get a new best friend; and discuss philosophy with a demon

So we go up on the third floor, and it?s more of the same with corridors and rooms off them with more ? and getting more powerful ? enemies in them. We?re just dealing with a group of Templars who?ve decided that the demons and/or mages were right all along when I notice that they?re hitting me rather more than usual. And then for the first time I get dropped by our enemies onto the cold floor.

We must find somewhere to fight where they have carpets.

After the fight I have Wynne looking at me with concern before casting a regeneration spell on me to restore my health. Leliana looks concerned and sings a song to restore my stamina. Alistair looks threatening, because that is after all his job. And I probably look annoyed, because I was planning on finishing this whole quest without going down and getting another achievement for it. Though I?m hoping to play this through without reloading, so there?s no going back now.

While I?m looting though, my brain catches up with my abilities. I am so awestruck by my genius that I nearly miss collecting some of the loot. I have a cunning plan, and since my surname isn?t Baldrick it should work really well.

In the next room a group of Templars stare adoringly at their blood-mage master. Apparently they?ve been brainwashed, a procedure that takes about five seconds with a piece of cloth and some wire through the ears. When the door opens, the rogue on the other side asks for a donation for the Elven Benevolent Fund in exchange for the poisoned acid-covered flaming crossbow bolt she just decorated the mage?s chest with. Since they?re Templars, and therefore impoverished due to not being allowed to loot the bodies of their enemies, they attempt to refuse this offer, and the follow up of an acid flask into their midst. Sadly it doesn?t work out too well for them. Some unidentified villain has laid a series of traps in the hallway outside, and multiple explosions later the rogue does indeed get the donation that, in truth, was her right. Let this constitute a lesson for Templars everywhere; when a rogue comes in the front door, it?s probably time to ensure your will is up to date.

With this cheesy and unfair tactic to hand, the rest of this level is pretty easy. Although completing a quest by reading a letter, when you don?t have any indication that there?s a quest in the first place, does seem a little bizarre. I do like the ?Book of Horribly Evil Magic that Morrigan would like? that you can recover here. I?m certain it will give her a great deal of insight into how our enemies work and she?ll never consider acting against us, or at least that I?ll get some more friendship points from her. Speaking of which, I found another religious icon and gave it to Leliana, and now she rivals Morrigan for the title My Bestest Friend.

On the next floor up, the décor is getting positively bizarre. Bulbous growths around the pillars and at the base of some walls are the most obvious, but there are other things that seem a little off-putting including puddles of not-blood. I consider swapping places with Leliana, since there?s absolutely no way I want to be on the floor here. Moving on tiptoe is pretty much the only way to keep my boots clean.

The first room here has an extremely bizarre scene. A Templar appears to believe that he?s at home with his wife and children, and I don?t actually think is the case. The fact that the person who he believes to be his wife is labelled Desire Demon does suggest something slightly unusual. I strike up a conversation with Mrs Templar.

She suggests that what she?s doing isn?t harmful. The Templar is merely getting what he, in his heart of hearts, really wants. If this is the case, surely there?s nothing wrong with leaving them alone for her to suck his soul out of him slowly.

I agree that it?s possible that what she says is correct, and she isn?t being actively malicious. This doesn?t make everyone in my party happy. At the same time, while she may be correct that the Templar is happy with the current arrangement, there?s no reason for me to be happy with it. I don?t particularly like Templars. It may be petty and vain, but one of them has me locked in this tower and is seeking permission to kill everyone in it, others have been trying to kill me, and they don?t even have particularly good loot. She looks like she?d be worth lots of experience points, and I?d like to collect it.

So we try, although the fight is her, the Templar, and their two children who are apparently skeletons of some sort. They?re fully grown skeletons too, which suggests that this relationship has been going on for some time. But with Alistair able to take on the Templar, I get on with the process of dismantling the skeletons and then we set on the Desire Demon. She goes down, although given how hard it is I start to wonder whether there?s some advantage for women in fighting in skimpy clothing. I?ve seen plenty of pictures which suggest this is so. Once I have cleaner underwear, I might have to try it myself.

After a little more looting and fighting, we come upon a particularly important demon, one that introduces itself to us with a cut-scene. It suggests we should probably take a rest. Alistair, Wynne, and Leliana don?t seem to like the idea, and I?m not entirely happy with it myself. Then it suggests it again, and we fall asleep.

I hope none of the mess on the floor gets in my hair. Someone will pay if it does.

[Bluenose]

Part the Fourteenth

Wherein I kill someone who I thought was dead; and discover my mighty magical powers

I wake up in a really big building. I don't mean really big like the Chantry in Lothering, I mean huge. That means there are lots of places to find loot!

Except that wandering along there aren't anything, except for a platform at the end with three people on it. Two of them are ordinary Grey Wardens, and one is Duncan. Last time I saw him he'd just climbed off an ogre and was giving the dead king a very manly hug while a large group of darkspawn charged him. I assume that there's a story behind this, so I go over to talk to him.

Duncan tells me the Grey Wardens have beaten the Blight, including killing the Archdemon. You'd think people would tell me these things. Anyway, the big building is Weisshaupt Fortress, headquarters of the Grey Wardens. I thought there'd be more of us here, but I suppose casualties must have been high. Anyway, he offers to show me around. Then, when I ask him how he got away from the darkspawn, he starts telling me how I'm obsessed with fighting and that's what we're going to do. I was just making conversation! I'm beginning to think Duncan has a bit of a temper, and Ser Jory would probably agree. Oddly enough he's rather easy to beat. Perhaps the ogre took more out of him than I thought. A couple of stunning attacks and some kidney stabbing and he's done. The other two Grey Wardens don't put up much more resistance, although the one with the bow does annoy me by running away. I'm disappointed not to be able to loot the bodies afterwards.

Considering how Alistair had such a crush on Duncan, I think this is something he doesn't need to know about. He'd probably be quite upset with me.

I then go through some sort of portal which takes me a long way from Ferelden. There's a mage there, and he tells me we're in the Fade (which I think is an archipelago west of Orlais, but geography was never my best subject) and we're trapped there by a demon. Things are finally looking up! All I have to do is kill the demon and we can all go home. Depressed Mage-Guy doesn't seem to think much of the idea, but I've already killed plenty of other demons so one more shouldn't be a problem. Anyway, he's going to stay here being depressed while I do the legwork.

First, there's a gateway which takes me to another island. I kill a demon, which when I appear is having a fight with a mouse. The mouse is grateful enough that it elects to die, so that it can transfer it's magic to me. I'm waiting to find out what awesome powers I'm getting, when another menu appears. I can now turn into a mighty and magical... mouse.

Hmm.

I'm probably supposed to climb up enemies trouser legs and start biting, but I can't see any to practice on around here. I'm not sure I fancy it with darkspawn anyway.

Another door takes me to yet another island, where I kill a few more of the local (rather feeble) demons and eat some rock. That lyrium is good for your health. The door at the end of that I was expecting to take me somewhere else, but instead it's back to the first island. Depressed Mage seems mildly impressed by new new-found magical ability, and suggests I use it to get around the islands. I think he then does something which opens the pedestal behind him, though I'm not sure. Anyway, it gives me a map of more islands which are laid out in a rather funky star shape, and lets me get on with jumping around them.

The first one I go to is the Darkspawn Invasion. I knew darkspawn were involved in this somehow. The mage everyone else thinks is behind it was at Ostagar, and he was clearly seduced by the Darkspawn there, perhaps by one of those strangely virile hurlocks. Anyway, I wander through some corridors, killing a variety of darkspawn and finding variously dead-ends, doors I can't open, and walls of flame which would kill me if I tried to walk through them. Eventually I realise that the mouse-holes might be quite useful to me despite the fact that I'm much too big to go through them. My new magical abilities will suffice.

The first set eventually takes me past a Tertris-shape into a room which has a glowy thing in it. I examine it, and it makes me even more cunning. This is a good thing, and I quickly devise a new plan. Forget about finding the way out, and find more glowy things.

Next I go back to the Tetris shape and head out through a mouse-hole to the north. This is north of the walls of fire I couldn't get past before, so I can get on with the business of killing more of the darkspawn who are hanging around here. Eventually I find a room where some darkspawn are attacking a Templar-spirit. When I kill them and save him, he teaches me his special magic of turning into a spirit, despite the fact that Templars are quite specifically not magical. This form has get a few more tricks than the mouse, since it can encase people in ice, imprison them in a cage of force, and heal. But it doesn't fit through mouse-holes, knock down unbreakable doors, or survive burning, so I can't avoid all the problems. And I grab another of the glowy things.

The next place I go is back to the first island. There was a spirit door there which I can now open. I go through it, and some very rude demon starts attacking me. I stick her into the spirit's cage, beat her allies within an inch of their life and then a little further. Finally the cage wears out, and I kill the demoness a lot. Depressed Mage seems a little impressed, although he's still certain we can't get out. Obviously he's judging me by the standards of Templars, and I'm both more capable and prettier than any of them as he will see.

[Bluenose]

Part the Fifteenth

Wherein I catch fire a lot; worry about clothes; and experiment with female defensive "armour"

Next I go to an island called Mage Asunder. There are a lot of mages here. They throw spells at me, which is pretty funny when I'm in spirit form because most of the spells don't work. I freeze them to death, and totally fail to find anything on their corpses to loot. I can't get too far into the area though, because there's another of those walls of fire which stops me getting any further.

Instead I head for the Burning Tower. I am not surprised to find lots of things here that are on fire, including several templars. What does help, apart from killing the burning templars, is that there are enough mouse-holes for me to get around the barriers. Eventually I find a templat who, after I defeat him, teaches me turn into a burning ninja that is immune to fire. To test this I walk through a few walls of fire, and enter one room through a spirit door which has two shiny things in it to make me more awesome. I still can't get through the really big doors, though.

Which means I've got to go back to Mage Asunder. This time I go through the fiery bits with no problems. Some very stupid mages try to fireball me while I'm in burning ninja elf form. It doesn't work too well for them since I'm already on fire, and they catch some of the other mages in the blast. Apparently intelligence isn't a requirement for mages, so in future when Morrigan and Wynne give me advice I will assume they're wrong unless smarter people like Sten, Leliana and Shep agree.

This time I have a big fight with two chantry priests and their golems to rescue a Cursed Dreamer, which seems like an odd job title. He teaches me to turn into a golem before disappearing. This is a bit of a problem, since the golem is much bigger than I am and therefore it will probably split whatever I am wearing when I turn into one. Yet I need to do so to knock down doors. Fortunately I have a clever idea. The skanky demons can fight really well in very skimpy clothing, so I take all my armour off until I'm in my underwear. This should provide adequate protection, and since it's always there I should have no problem with the golem form destroying my other clothes. Although I am a little worried that it's much more extensive than the clothes the skanky demons wear, so might be less protective.

Since I can finally smash through doors, though throwing rocks at them seems a slightly odd way to do it, I carry on through this area. There are some mages and rather more golems up the stairs, and I find the most sensible tactic is to smash the mages as a golem and then turn into a burning ninja and fireball the golems from range. I don't really get to test female armour except with a priest, who I kill quite easily. He may have been unwilling to look too closely at me, which doesn't help if someone is stabbing your kidneys. This lets me get through with few problems, and touch some more sparkly things. I have a fight with Slavren who seems to be in charge here, and we pound away at each other Slavren and golem for a while. If this is how Alistair feels when he's standing toe to toe with some big ugly monster it's no wonder he is stupid, as I can feel my intelligence leaking away even as I win. Remember, pounding away bad, stabbing kidneys good.

Now that I can smash through doors, I go back to the earlier islands and finish them off. The Bruning Tower is really quite easy, as in golem form I throw an exploding rock at one group of enemies and then smash the island boss repeatedly until he dies despite his attempts to burn me. Darkspawn Invasion has an ogre, which I persuade to come out of it's room to play with my quite extensive collection of traps.

The last of the main islands is the Templar's Nightmare. I can't imagine how perverted this is going to be considering how I find one who dreams of a world where he's married to a skanky demon and has skeleton children, but there seems no way to avoid it. It turns out not to be as bad as I was expecting, and the numerous enemies, mouse-holes, and walls of fire present few obstacles to a shapechanging elf ninja. I do get some amusement from luring several enemies into a room full of flames by the simple expedient of running away in burning ninja form and watching them burn to death. Eventually I get to the last room, where I discover the island boss is another skanky demon chick. This is what Templars have nightmares about? Although with the overwhelmingly male environment they grow up in, I suppose underdressed women would be quite scary.

I kill her in my stabby form, just to prove I can. It looks like I'm finally allowed into the central area where the demon lives; but first I think I'll go and pick up my minions from the outside islands.

[Bluenose]

Part the Sixteenth

Wherein I confront magical defeatism; religious mania; suspicions of incest; and a demon on special offer

There are three island-prisons round the outskirts of the Fade, which I assume are where my companions are being kept. On the first one I visit I find Wynne. She appears to be apologising to a couple of the other mages for letting them die, which surprises me as they're pretty obviously still alive and standing right next to her. It's such an odd way to behave that I'm forced to assume she's jsut a little deranged right now. Still, I'm a kind elf ninja and I try to make her feel better by pointing out what is really happening, but she won't pay attention to me and eventually won't talk to me at all. When I talk to the other mages they get rather upset and shapeshift into demons, and I'm forced to kill them. Wynne doesn't interfere either, which given how upset she was about their deaths seems slightly odd, but then she explains it. She recognised them as demons and was therefore playing along until I arrived and could fight them. Then she turns into some sparkles and disappears. I wish she'd teach me how to do that, it would make getting around a lot easier.

On tthe next island I find Leliana, who's having a really good pray with a senior priestess from the Chantry. It turns out eventually that this woman is also a disguised demon, and I have to fight her. And then Leliana disappears in the same sort of sparkles Wynne used. I really think they're being very mean to me not telling me how to do that. I've had to find my way all round these islands turning into all sorts of things, when you can just go all sparkly and shift with no probelms.

Finally I go to the last island, where I find Alistair. He is living with his sister, and there are children too! I do not wish to know what this implies about their relationship. Alistair is his normal self, just slightly more whiny than usual. However, I'm just a little suspicious as I've already found several Templars (and Alistair was a Templar before he became a Grey WArden) in bizarre relationships with demons, and both Wynne and Leliana were accompanied by disguised demons. When I confront Alsitair's sister, it turns out that I am right again, and I have to fight her and a few other enemies. Alistair wants to know why I did that, but accepts that perhaps it wasn't entirely proper since his sister was after all a demon.

And then he goes all sparkly and disappears and I won't stand for this any more! If they won't teach me how to do that I'm going to do something drastic. and since they aren't around I'm going to go and fight the demon on my own. That'll teach them, since I'll get all the XPs and loot and won't share anything.

When I go to the central island, the demon, who is called Sloth, is there. We start talking, and he describes me as rebellious. I don't think that's right, since I'm not wearing ahything red. As we're talking there are three sparkles, and there are Wynne, Alistair, and Leliana again. There's an exchange of words, where I get some rather better ones than I give the demon, and then rather predictably the demon makes an offer we can't refuse and I refuse it.

It's a very hard fight. It's not so much that the demon seems particularly powerful, because with Alistair in front, me taking out my frustrations in it?s kidneys behind, Leliana bombarding it with arrows and Wynne healing it dies rather easily. Unfortunately it seems like the demon took advantage of a sale, and got two bodies for the price of one. As soon as we beat the first, it starts again at full strength.

Annoyingly, this time when I'm behind it used a trick I've only seen before with ogres and kicks backwards. That hurts, and my mood is not improved when it shoves Alistair away and turns to start hitting me. Bravely, I provoke it further with my favourite below the Belt trick, and take off round the island with the demon in pursuit. That lets Alistair recover, Leliana and Wynne damage it further, and finally while it is chasing me it expires again.

And then the special offer version kicks in, and it comes back with yet another form. This one is a little more powerful than the last, and what makes it worse is that Wynne isn't bothering to heal anyone any more having run out of mana. I take charge of her for a moment to show her how to use the lyrium veins, and she is soon back to full casting. Unfortunately Alistair is very nearly out of health when I look back, so I have to save him before it's too late by pulling him out of combat and using some bottled poultices. This makes it very annoying when the demon drops and the only people near full health are Leliana and Wynne.

It turns out that there was an end-of-line sale that our demon took advantage of too. He doesn't have one form, or two, or even three. There's actually a fourth version. This one kicks off by using a blizzard spell, freezing all of us and doing enough damage to nearly finish us off. Unfortunately for the demon the rest of the package isn?t so good, and when it wears off I get Wynne to cast a group heal and we go to work with bow, blade and spell until the demon drops. Alistair is the one who finishes it off, in what looks like a very painful manner. I didn?t know human arms even bent that way.

Once the demon is down, Depressed Mage turns up and expresses his amazement. He also tries to be helpful, taking a ritual off his body. While I?m somewhat averse to random killing I was perfectly prepared to do him if it was necessary, but it turns out he was expecting us to be back in the mage?s tower soon, and that he would be dead. He said something about being here too long and being dead when he went back, which I presume means there?s something addictive in the soil and the cold turkey when you leave is something exceptional. So it?s a good thing we killed the demon so soon, really.

I wonder as we seem to start heading back, does the defeat of Sloth mean that everyone is going to be hard working when we get back to Ferelden? I'll try being lazy and see what happens.

[Bluenose]

Part the Seventeenth

Wherein the bad mage dies; the good mage lives; I get an army; finally some decent loot

Apparently once the demon dies we get to teleport back to the giant phallic symbol the mages live in automatically. Depressed Mage is, as he expected dead. Since he asked so nicely, I loot his body. He has the Litany of somebody, which is a very good thing since it will upset blood mages and demons by stopping them doing nasty things to us. And since I'm in my underwear, this makes me virtually untouchable.

Carrying on around this really annoying layout, we kill a few more blood mages and their allies. Eventually we get to the room where the stairs to the top level are, and after killing a few more enemies we have a short conversation with an aggressively Paranoid Templar. At first he thinks we're more blood mages and we've come to torture him as we did with his friends. Since this isn't so, I make an attempt to reassure him that we're Grey Wardens and are here to solve the problem. He attempts to persuade me to kill all the mages, as being a proper Templar he thinks that killing mages is the solution to all problems. This is a foolish argument to use with me. I want the mages myself, to send as an army against the darkspawn. I'm not going to kill people who seem like they might be useful.

Upstairs, we reach what they call the harrowing chamber. I can't actually see much use for agricultural machinery in there since the floor is stone, but mages are pretty strange. And at last it's a floor where we don't have to go all round the outside passage to reach something interesting. There's just one big chamber.

The big bad mage who is at the bottom of all this is present, along with several other mages and a few demons. Apparently he's learnt the trick of turning other mages into demons, and he's so pleased by this he decides to try them out on a Grey Warden. This was not the best idea he ever had. Even when he turns into a really big demon himself, he's not very formidable in melee. We ignore the other demons that he keeps creating and whack away at him. I keep reciting the litany every so often, which seems to stop much magic being used. At some point Leliana must have had another demon get too close, because when I look up she's using her sword/dagger combination against the main enemy - which while she's not as good as a proper elf ninja still seems like pretty effective kidney-stabbing, as she ends up getting the kill herself.

At last, we get to First Enchanter Irving. He seems like a sensible old chap, if rather peeved at the behaviour of some of his mages. He suggests that we go downstairs and talk to the captain of the Templars, Greagoir, and explain that things will be getting back to normal and mass genocide of everyone inside won't be necessary. And then he proves what a wise and sensible person he is, by complaining about the layout of the tower and the number of stairs. Clearly this is a man of vision, and I resolve to suggest to my father that he arrange for a group of interior decorators to visit. If they should happen to create some infiltration routes in the process of rebuilding this would be purely coincicdental.

When we get downstairs, Greagoir has to listen to an argument between Irving and Paranoid Templar, who had apparently beaten us downstairs. Paranoid Templar is still in favour of slaughtering everybody, despite the fact that we've killed all the hostiles. He claims you can't be sure that any of them aren't demons in disguise. Irving says he is sure everything is fine. Greagoir, being sensible, asks me my opinion. Since I still want an army of mages, I tell him not to go ahead with the kill-everything option. Which gets me my army of mages, and although I'm not supposed to get the Templars in this case there will have to be some present if they are to keep an eye on the mages. Anyway, Irving claims that the reduced number of mages doesn't matter much, since even a single mage is very, very, very dangerous.

Perhaps I should have sided with the Templars after all.

Wynne chooses this moment to declare she's coming with me to fight the Darkspawn, if I'll have her. As far as I'm concerned it's the more the merrier, particularly if it's a mage who can save me having to buy healing poultices.

Despite this success, I'm not entirely satisfied with the results of this expedition. I wanted more loot. We head back into the tower to attempt one of the side-quests. The door to the basement should according to my journal now open. It doesn't actually do so, but fiddling with it lets some ancient spirit get loose to attack us. I don't even get to the top of the steps before it's dead, since there are several mages in the room and my party are in the way. We do get to loot the body though, and along with various gems there are two very nice weapons. One is a longsword that's useful for killing dragons among other things, which I will give to Alistair when he becomes less of a wimp. The other is a really stabby dagger. I'm just about to appropriate it for myself when I realise that Leliana was doing some stabbing herself and her weapons aren't as good as mine, so I equip it in her secondary weapon slot. As all should know, elves are famous for their generosity.

We go back to camp, where I have a short discussion with Sten on the subject of Grey Wardens and killing Archdemons. I refuse to admit I haven't got a clue how to find it let alone kill it, and he seems quite satisfied with my answer. I visit the dwarven merchant/spy, and get rid of a whole pile of outdated equipment, gems, and other valuables. Then I decide to start distributing various gifts, and make a discovery. It's possible to bribe Sten into liking me by giving him pictures. Morrigan meanwhile is extremely happy when I give her the Grimoire of Really Evil Magic, which apparently was written by her mother. This lets Morrigan learn some of her mother's secrets, and makes her much happier with me. She is now, just, my bestest friend, and that apparently makes her a better mage. I consider giving Leliana the Golden Pantaloons to see whether that will make her a better bard, but at the last moment I decide not to since she's already shown a keen interest in fashion and they might be considered a little tacky.

I go to sleep, wondering where to go next. And also thinking that perhaps the whole fighting-in-my-underwear thing suggests somewhere where we won't have too many witnesses.

[Bluenose]

Part the Eighteenth

Wherein a cold climate and ghastly ghosts force to me re-evaluate a theory; now, where's some elfroot

Eventually I make the decision to head for Soldier's Peak. I know it's not one of the critical tasks in our save-the-world operation, but I would like to see how well some of my companions work together and gain a little more experience.

Besides, I'm still scared that the Dalish will make me eat their idea of food if we go there.

I pick Morrigan, Sten and Shep. This is significantly more offensive than my previous party of Alistair, Leliana and Wynne. The idea is that while we will take damage at a faster rate, we'll be able to kill enemies fast enough that shorter fights will result in less damage overall. So taking Levi Dryden with me, we leave camp heavily laden with healing salves and offensive power.

We get another cutscene. Apparently there's going to be a civil war between TTW Loghain (spit!) and some of his enemies, despite the fact of the Blight. And some of TTW's followers have heard there are Grey Wardens who survived his betrayal at Ostagar and have taken steps to deal with them. Enter a Spanish Elf Assasin, who apparently thinks he's a bird. TTW doesn't seem quite as pleased as I expected, no villanous cackle, but he does tell the assassin to get on with killing us. For a moment I consider heading back to camp, but then I remember that this is a role-playing game and I'm supposed to pretend I don't know this is happening several hundred miles away.

Once Mr Dryden gets us to Soldier's Peak, I can see that it's a pretty formidable fortress, though in a poor state of repair. Dryden can't tell us much about it, but he does want to follow us around as we go. Since I've no objection to this we head off with him following along. We wander up towards the main gate, and then we get visited by a group of people who talk as if the siege is just starting. I look around carefully but there is no sign of an attacking army or defenders, so obviously we have not travelled back in time. I suspect we are dealing with ghosts.

Mr Dryden does seem rather distressed. I suggest that it's a sign that this is a place which it's easy for ghosts and demons to get to, which doesn't make him any happier. He is still going to carry on in with us, though.

Further up the slope we enter the fortress proper. There's a statue on one of the battlements with an inscription that explains some of the history, and a rather large surprise ambush in the courtyard. We end up fighting several groups of ghosts, some of which are wardens and some attackers. We kill most of them, but as I rush the last group of archers on the stairs their fire drops me. While this doesn't help them much with Sten, Shep and Morrigan on the rampage, I am left freezing my backside off in the snow.

Once we've won and I'm back on my feet, I'm forced to consider something. I am wearing only my underwear, which means I'm freezing in this snow, because of the observed advantages of this in combat proven by the combat capabilities of the skanky demons. Yet I am not observing thse same advantages in myself. I consider (and then reject as laughable) the possibility that I'm less physically attractive than them, and I'm forced to conclude that my underwear is simply not good enough. Until I can find better, I will be forced to wear whatever armour I can loot from our enemies or in the worst case buy. So it's back into leathers for now. And checking the inventory, we appear to be rather shorter of healing poultices than we were a few minutes ago. Naming no names, but some Qunari smells of elfroot. Of which there's a distinct shortage.

Up the stairs, we come to the main doors of the keep. Since tuning back at this point would be pointless and cowardly, I lead the party inside. There we find the ghost of Sophia Dryden giving an inspiring speech to her collection of Grey Wardens. It certainly impresses her great-great-great-grandsom Levi, and he can't wait to tell me. There's also a scroll with a collection of names of the Grey Wardens who fought alongside her on the wall.

Clearing out the rest of the lower level is pretty easy. There are two fairly simple fights, plus another ghost encounter when we find the library and I try to read a badly charred book. The chronicler was updating it as the troops broke in, determined to make sure that the truth would be known. It's a shame the book got damaged and it won't.

Finally, the stairs to the second floor. Hopefully there will be answers to some of our questions upstairs, and maybe a teensy bit of good loot too.

[Bluenose]

Part the Nineteenth

Wherein we chat with a demon-possessed Grey Warden and a Grey Warden blood mage; and win the right to live in a ruin

Upstairs is just as ruined as the lower floors. We get another ghostly scene, where it appears that when the King's army broke in Sophia Dryden had one of her mages summon multiple demons to fight against them. Not entirely surprisingly he lost control of them, and then scarpered. I'm not sure Sophia was too happy about this, and it certainly seems to have made Levi disappointed with her.

We then get to fight some of the demons. A big one appears close to us, with a few more around the edge of the room. We set on the big guy hoping to drop him before the little ones can get involved. After battering him down to half his health I notice something very annoying. Something is healing him. We carry on battering away for a bit, he carries on hurting us and getting healed, when I realise what's going on. Plan B - Ignore the big demon, kill the little ones! We do. Then more little ones appear. So we kill them too. With no more appearing we're at last able to set on the big guy withoug him getting healed constantly, and finally Shep takes matters into his own paws and Charges, savaging the last remnants of health away. He's a good dog. I give him the cake he found earlier, which I was going to give to Alistair.

Up another set of stairs, we kill a few more demons and find another bit of information about one of the previous Commanders - apparently he had a thing for elven women. I will take great pleasure in finding and taking his stuff, especially if we get to kill his ghost. We can't open one of the doors, but through the other one I get a bit of a surprise. Sophia Dryden is waiting for me.

I admit to her that I'm rather surprised she's not dead. It turns out that she's a demon possessing Sophia's body, and not taking particularly good care of it. She would like us to kill the mage who let all the demons in, in exchange for which she'll help us stop more demons getting in to the fortress and take her body off to do some ravaging the countryside on her own rather than with an army of demons behind her. Sten tells me that the Qun is quite specific about the need to kill demons quickly. Not now, please, I'm trying to sell skincare products here.

Once I've "agreed" to go along with her plan, we get out through the door which wouldn't open before. There's a bridge over to the tower where the mage is supposed to live, guarded by a few skeletons and skeleton archers. While Sten and I deal with the skeletons, Shep rushes the archers and gets stuck in a trap. How dare they hurt my doggie! I kill them with extreme prejudice, and loot their bodies.

Inside the tower we find some of the mages notes. I don't think he seems like a very nice person, experimenting on human subjects and that sort of thing. He has left a bottle of blood-stuff lying around, and since being a Grey Warden involves drinking blood I partake. It doesn't pack quite as much kick as the darkspawn blood from the joining, but the bouquet is nicer. I learn how bleeding myself can make me fight better for a time. Next time I have Wynne around to do some healing I'll try that.

The mage himself is still alive in the next room. Not undead, not possessed by a demon, just properly alive. And better preserved than Ms Dryden too. We have a conversation about ethics, history, and Levi finds that there's no actual proof that Sophia Dryden wasn't a traitor and his family won't get their name cleared here. I commiserate with him a bit.

Mr Mage wants us to kill Sophia Dryden and then he'll help us stop more demons breaking in. I think I've heard this plan before. The more he talks at me the crazier I think he sounds. On the other hand, one version of this plan involves letting a demon-possessed Grey Warden loose to ravage the world and the other... doesn't. I'm inclined to think the first would be bad publicity, especially for people who are currently suspected of killing the king. I agree to his idea. While he heads off I take the opportunity of his back being turned to loot the room, and find one last piece of information about Commander Elf-Molester.

When we go back with him and confront Sophia-Demon, it doesn't take long before a fight breaks out. The Mad Mage has a really annoying trick of throwing fireballs at her; which would be great if we weren't all getting blasted by this in the confined space. Fortunately we can run for the other side of the room and shoot her with our bows/crossbows/magic, except for Shep who gets to stand in the corner until she's dead. A little corpse looting follows, before he takes us down to the room where the summoned demons appear.

He claims that he's going to start closing the gates he opened, and we should protect him from demons and spirits while he does it. In practice I think he just let us get on with killing anything that appeared until the word got around among the demons that this way into the world was pretty dangerous. Anyway, we kill a wave of rage demons, some ash spirits, some other stuff, and finally one of the skanky demons appears. By this point we're out of healing poultices, and both Sten and Shep fall to the awesome power of her bosom. This is actually quite convenient, since it lets Morrigan use her new Cone of Cold without freezing allies, and once she's frozen I get to molest her with my daggers unhindered by attempts to hit me. She recovers from one CoC just in time for Morrigan to blast her with another freezing spell, and a little more backstabbing finishes her off.

Once she drops, The Mad Mage claims he's closed all the portals and everything is fine again. Right, of course I believe you. I agree that he can stay here to research ways to fight darkspawn, but he's got to stop torturing people in his experiments. This makes him very unhappy, but I'm trying to improve the image of the Wardens and his ideas won't help right now. He wanders off to sulk in his tower.

Levi Dryden seems happy to hang around the castle with some of his family, settling in, repairing bits, and providing a merchant service for me with a substantial discount. That's fine with me, another merchant is never a bad thing. On the way out I find, and loot with great glee, the old Elf-molesters cache of treasure. It includes a very nice wardenny sword, which does in my main hand and will be improved with one of the several runes I've found once we get back to camp.

Which is where we'll head now, assuming they haven?t all been killed by the assassins I?m pretending not to know about.

[Bluenose]

Part the Twentieth

Wherein Morrigan has a request; rather a big one, actually; and an assassin has a different one

When we get back to camp Morrigan wants to speak to me immediately. It seems that the Grimoire of Really Evil Spells she was so happy to get doesn't actually have many spells in it at all. Instead, it explains some of Flemeth's history. There's a reason why Flemeth has lived so long, why there have been so many reports of "Witches of the Wild", and why none of the latter apart from Morrigan seem to be around now. If Morrigan is to be believed, and given how shocked she seems I do believe her, once Fleneth starts to feel old she has a daughter. That daughter grows up, Flemeth teaches her magic, sends her out into the world, and then takes her body over to extend her own life. This is what is going on now.

This is the first time I've seen Morrigan in a panic. I've seen her being sarcastic, being condescending, being angry and even being quite pleasant, but now she's scared and she's showing it. I ask her if she's sure, and then I take a deep breath and ask her how we can help.

She wants us to kill her mother.

Kill Flemmeth, who is a legend not just in Ferelden but in places outside it too. Who is one of the most powerful mages in the whole world.

All right, we'll give it a go.

Morrigan seems very pleased. She even thinks if we can kill Flemmeth and recover her main grimoire she might be able to learn enough from it to defend herself when Flemmeth comes after her anyway. Apparently being dead won't be enough.

It'll have to wait till after Redcliffe, though.

I wander around chatting to everyone, listen to another of Leliana's stories, and play with Shep. No-one reports any sign of assassins, so I'm still pretending that I know nothing about one being after us. Although I suppose I could talk to Leliana about it, since she's got a hotline from God and would probably believe I have one from somewhere else.

I've decided next to go to Redcliffe. That means deciding who to take. Morrigan is a bit stressed at the moment, and might not be the best person to meet nobles anyway. Sten is in my good books after Soldier's Peak, but again his presence might not be ideal for a castle. Shep might be a good idea, except his about of marking his territory might be a little embarrassing. Alistair is an obvious choice since he grew up there, Wynne is experienced enough to know how to behave in posh company, and Leliana is both a bard and better than me at opening chests which since a noble castle should have lots of loot is going to be useful. So I set out with a party of Alistair, Wynne and Leliana.

What a shock. Along the way we get ambushed. It starts off with a woman coming up to us and claiming her cart has been attacked. We wander over to have a see, where a wrecked cart is in by the side of the road. She starts looking very sly, and then a group appears around us. The leader is Mr Assassin from my vision, some of his friends are with him, and there are two small groups of archers on either side where the ground is higher.

The fight doesn't exactly go too well for the ambushers. The leader closes on us, and finds himself fighting Alistair head on. This is exactly the wrong thing for him to do, with his inferior armour and fighting skill and great expertise in stabbing people from behind. The other fighters on the road try to take me head on, when they'd have been better advised to have one take me frontally while the others got onto my blind side. I go all ninja on three of them with a sweep and some rapid stabs. The mage goes down rather quickly, skewered by Leliana's arrows and Wynne's magic. Then I head up one slopes while Leliana draws her blades and goes up the other and we finish off the archers, one of whom ends up losing a close range shoot out with Leliana who for some reason switched to bow after dropping two of her foes.

Once the fight is done, we gather around the lead assassin. He is still alive, and although there's an option to cut his throat and have done with it I decide it would be interesting to talk to him. Maybe he'll teach me some assassin secrets, since no-one else seems willing to.

When he recovers, almost the first thing he says is that things haven't gone as he planned. If he'd planned the end of his ambush being all his men dead and him on the ground, disarmed and bound with all his intended victims looking down at him then I'd disagree with that assessment, but it's not what I would have planned for and I don't think it gives him many advantages. We interrogate him about who he is, who hired him, and a few other matters. He claims to be called Zevran, and to be an Antivan Crow. I'm about to call him a liar, since he's the wrong colour for a crow and hasn't got any feathers, when Leliana explains that the Crows are a famous assassin guild from Antiva. This saves me some slight embarrassment.

It appears that he was hired by TTW Loghain (as if I didn't have visions which told me this) for a rather large sum of money of which he has seen none. And that the Crows will be rather diappointed that he didn't die while attempting to kill me, and will probably attempt to correct both parts of this situation. Sprinkled amidst a lot of sexual innuendo he makes the offer that if I am willing to let him live he will enter my service, doing anything I ask in return for his life. Leliana seems quite interested in this, and he seems quite interested in her. When I accept Alistair is shocked that we're taking the assassin with us, but he did leave me in charge so it sucks to be him.

One other thing that I noticed in retrospect. While Zevran was on the ground with Leliana and me questioning him, he spent a lot of time squirming around. I thought it was nervousness, but given the innuendo he uses I'm now fairly certain it wasn't. The cheeky little bugger was looking up our skirts!