Just a BioWare Fan

I stayed at Vigil’s Keep long enough to put things together again. Anders wandered off one day with no explanation. He’d been increasingly strange since we’d returned to the stronghold and spent most of his time alone. I was sad he had left without even a farewell but hoped he could find happiness somewhere. He’d seemed to take the loss of Justice especially hard so perhaps a place that reminded him less of the spirit that had become our friend would do him some good.

A messenger sent with a report to Denerim returned to say that the king had not yet returned from whatever trouble he’d gone to the Bannorn to address. I knew that Alistair fought with Bann Teagan at his side and that the pair of them would be just fine. With nothing more to hold me on the surface at long last I turned my feet to my underground kingdom.

After another round of bridge and stairs, we reached the lowest level and slew the Darkspawn guards. From the smell of it, we faced a cul-de-sac filled with tainted flesh. Rank gobbets covered the floor in various shades of nasty and dangled from the walls much as it had in the Deep Roads beneath Orzammar where I’d first faced—and defeated—a broodmother. Pods like those from which various childer forms had sprung along our path lined what little distance we could see.

We may never find The Architect’s main lab, the place where he’d kept the bulk of his research and presumably a stronghold for those converted Darkspawn who remained on his side in this conflict, but I hoped that he was one of the few, if not the only one, who knew how to make and administer his “cure”. That he had sent so high a lieutenant to draw me to The Mother’s lair lent me hope that he had committed most of his forces in the long string of recent battles and perhaps the two sides had reduced each other’s numbers to the point where we could eliminate both factions.

True to form, Anders’s response took a teasing tone. “I think you already know the answer to that,” he joked. But he shifted tactics almost immediately, clearly aware that things had not been quite as he had thought. “Didn’t you want me to…join you?” He spoke hesitantly. “You didn’t say anything when I first came in but you responded so quickly…” He paused, thinking. “When you stopped I...did you change your mind, have sudden doubts?”

Apparently he’d had no idea that I hadn’t realized it was him with me from the beginning. He continued uncertainly. “I just thought…well, we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I thought you were willing to give in, just this once.” He trailed off, sounding disconcerted.

My anger at his presumption melted as I realized that he had done only what he’d thought I’d wanted. Obviously I’d misjudged his interest and his restraint in waiting for some clear signal from me. He hadn’t sought to trick me, to seduce me when I was at my most vulnerable. He’d intended only to give and receive some comfort in the face of what could well be the end of our time together, one way or another.

We were too exhausted to head straight to another string of battles. I ordered the guards to bring any news from the keep to me immediately and my companions and I retired to the temporarily-abandoned inn near the Chantry. The recent fighting had left Darkspawn corpses strewn about the ground floor but the rest of the building was relatively untouched. Anders magicked enough life into the dead to march them out to the street and into a relatively tidy pile.

I appropriated Kristoff’s old room and the others found quarters of their own. Our belongings settled, we rummaged in the kitchen for something to eat then sat around the fire fruitlessly considering our approach to the Dragonbone Wastes where The Mother had hidden herself. This occupation paled quickly. One by one we wandered off to make any preparations we could conceive for a place none of us had been and the unknown enemy at its heart.

Time seemed to stand still that afternoon as we rambled about the inn, too restless to lie down and too tired to commit to setting out for the Wastes. We bathed, cleaned our weapons and armor, bumped into each other in odd corners, and generally got in each other’s way and on each other’s nerves time and again.

What awaited me at the keep was nothing less than an urgent plea to turn around and make all haste back to Amaranthine. It seemed a horde had been spotted making its way overland toward the city and our Darkspawn-killing talents were required. There would be no restful evening around the fire tonight.

Regardless of my personal feelings I knew that we would need both the healing and the rather explosive magic that Anders provided so I tapped him, Ohgren, and Sigrun to accompany me back the way we had just come. I visited Wade first and, while we distributed the rest of the things we had brought back to the others and hunted down what clean underclothes we could find, he completed the wonderful pieces he’d been making for the Wardens between bouts of sword crafting and armor making.

These, too, went to those who could use them best and the four of us turned back to the city with all haste. Anders joked that he felt like a giant in the company of three dwarves but a sharp kick from Sigrun shut him up pretty quickly on that subject. He maintained a running patter, however, mocking companions and enemies alike. We camped for a scant nap on the way, not bothering to do more than roll ourselves up in our blankets with our heads on our packs. Luckily it was mild out and, aside from the lack of a hot meal, we did not miss having a fire.

I don’t know how she found out we were coming, but the first thing we found inside the gates of Vigil’s Keep was Kristoff’s wife, Aura. Ohgren swears he didn’t tell her so I can only assume she tracked her husband to the inn in Amaranthine, discovered we had been there first, and gone after him. We’d been gone only a few days and Ohgren’s return the previous evening would have perhaps given her reason to expect us. Had I been prepared I would have spoken to her before she saw her husband’s body, looking decidedly the worse for wear but walking and talking still.

As it was Anders barely managed to catch her as she fell fainting. He looked absurdly proud of himself, standing there holding an unconscious—but admittedly attractive—woman in his arms and I squelched a ridiculous stab of jealousy. Was I really so badly spoiled that my affections leapt to the nearest available man who happened to remind me of Alistair?

When Aura stirred Anders set her delicately on her feet once more. She thanked him absent-mindedly, her eyes devouring the somewhat dessicated face of Kristoff’s body. The moment she understood the situation she stormed off, seeming to believe, despite the stricken look on all of our faces at the accusation, that we had purposely inflicted Justice on the conveniently-deceased body like some sort of twisted necromancers.

Blackmarsh proved to hold werewolves, Darkspawn, and a haunted air, indeed. Though the village had fallen to ruins the manor house remained, brooding and mist-hidden. We found Kristoff’s abandoned camp and then, unsurprisingly, his body.

It would have done my heart good to find one member of the Order who had Joined before the Blight. Every time a more-senior member of the order comes to Ferelden something horrific happens to him or her. All of the Grey Wardens in Ferelden died in the betrayal at Ostagar, Riordin fell to (or, more literally, from) the Archdemon, and the dozen who came from Orlais after the Blight ended were lost to The Architect’s machinations. I never had a chance to know any of them, outside of a few days’ travel with Duncan and three conversations with Riordin.

That Alistair and I persist in being the longest-term members of the Grey Wardens in the whole country strikes me as a cruel joke of the ancestors at this point. It had been so long since anyone had heard from Kristoff that I held little hope of finding him alive if he still remained in the bogs. Yet I had still clung to that wish that one time fate would have paused in conspiring against the Wardens here long enough to bring me this small bit of solace. I should have known better.

One Warden from the keep appears to have been absent during the attack into which I walked upon my arrival. Kristoff thus was not among the dead in The Architect’s terrifying pit. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until recently that I tracked down someone who could tell me where he had gone. It seems he followed a lead into the Swamp of Despair or some such place and has not been seen since. Now that I’ve reestablished trade and wiped out the bandits who were terrorizing the streets I finally have time to pursue him.

It seems the Blackmarsh, as it is truly named, holds some special fascination for the people of Amaranthine. The village there was mysteriously abandoned years ago and I have found widespread superstition about the place. Nathaniel seems keen to go on this trip and so he, Ohgren, Anders, and I set off in the morning. I would have preferred to stay in the city of Amaranthine one more night rather than trek all of the way back to Vigil’s Keep, well out of our way, but Seneschal Verel sent word of some urgent matters that required my attention.

Along the way I asked Anders something I’d long wanted to know. He’d told me stories about his time hiding from the Templars on each escape and how nasty they were on the way back to the Circle tower each time. But I’d never inquired why he kept escaping in the first place. “I was a child like any other,” he told me. “My parents told me I could do anything and I believed them. Then I got hauled off to the tower.” He made a sour face. “Before my harrowing I understood the watching, the guarding. None of us had proven ourselves and we were a bunch of scared kids taken from home and locked up together. I hated it but I understood.” His eyes narrowed in anger. “But once I’d passed my harrowing and shown that I could resist the demons that the Chantry seems to think pursue us every moment nothing changed. Templars stared and kept their hand on the hilts of their swords as though I would burst into flames and tear out their throats at any second.”

It seems the ancestors insist on my bringing an angry mage on my journeys. We did find much of interest regarding our Darkspawn dilemma but we also found a furious elf who went from trying to kill us all to becoming a Warden the better to join us in bringing down The Architect, as he calls himself.

Velanna has definitely proven herself adept in battle. I only hope that she does not harbor some secret agenda, like Morrigan, that will require so painful a decision. Thus far she seems focused solely on saving her sister. We encountered some of her clan mates and discovered that she had been exiled, much as I once had, but apparently she has no mythic mother that needs destroying. Her sister certainly does not seem able to turn into a dragon or crush us with a glance, though I fear she must be tainted and on her way to becoming a ghoul after so long in the company of the Darkspawn.

It turned out that Velanna had been the one terrorizing travelers along the trade route. She’d believed false evidence planted by the Darkspawn and thought that humans had kidnapped her sister and slaughtered her friends. Not only did the idea that Darkspawn could bait such a trap stun me but her inability to see through such a near-obvious ploy made me concerned. I’ve come since to believe that her guilt and grief that everyone else who had joined her in exile had died had made her easy to fool. Though curt and quite private she has shown intelligence enough to counter that first impression.

It wasn’t so very long ago that I found myself exiled from the royal house of Orzammar to fight for my life in the Deep Roads, having been framed for the murder of my beloved brother by my remaining brother. Moments later, it seemed, a Grey Warden named Duncan recruited me into his order and suddenly I was in Ostagar planning to face a massive army of ghoulish Darkspawn with the king of all Ferelden, who was promptly killed. A whirlwind of slaughter, betrayal, happenstance, and problem solving led me into the arms of the new king and to the bewildering moment of slicing the length of a dragon’s throat to save the country from destruction.

In the months since I had lounged about court indulging myself with King Alistair, had my exile rescinded, been named a paragon of my people, and elevated to dwarven queen when my brother’s loyal idiots finally drove King Harrowmont, whom I had placed on the throne in his stead, to an early death. My life had spun around me, seemingly something I could watch but barely direct. Yet the crew we had assembled in our travels had ended a civil war and brought to heel the fourth Blight. We had pulled together elves, dwarves, and humans alike and changed the course of Ferelden’s history by restoring a son of storied King Maric to its throne.

And now I find myself embarking again on a seemingly impossible mission and leading a hastily-assembled crew of misfits. This new mission as Commander of the Grey at Vigil’s Keep has been a sort of sweet torture for me. Much about both my companions and our activities reminds me of my earlier travels. Instead of Zevran, the erstwhile Crow assassin, I have Nathaniel, a rogue that no one expected to prove useful but who has shown himself more loyal and stronger than any would have thought. My insistence on recruiting the son of traitorous Rendon Howe shocked everyone nearly as much as my prior decision to bring the elf who had just tried to kill me. Yet the results have been similar.