Dragon Age: Inquisition — Story Playthrough — Part Fifteen
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Hawke had sacrificed herself so Iselia and Alistair could escape the Nightmare beast of the Fade. The Wardens were now the allies of the Inquisition and the Magister who had twisted their minds now lay rotting in the deepest, darkest hole they could find.
Varric, of course, was devastated over the death of his best friend, but Iselia was there for him if he needed to talk, and the Inquisition needed to keep on keeping on.
In the War Room, they spoke of their next steps. So far they had thwarted Corypheus twice: once when they saved the Empress, and again now having taken the Wardens out from underneath him.
Corypheus was surely enraged by now and would be coming for them soon. However, they had found a lot of Corypheus' people ransacking elven ruins, looking for something... they just didn't know what he was after.
Morrigan took that as a timely moment to wander in to the war room.
She knew exactly what Corypheus was seeking in elven temples, for she, too, had once searched for something down in the forgotten forests. She beckoned Iselia to follow her and together they left the war room.
In a room to the side of the gardens, Morrigan had stored a massive... mirror of some sort. She called it an eluvian. Apparently she had found and restored this artifact nearly ten years ago, but before coming across this one she had searched for another in the wilds where Corypheus' people now hunted. She was certain that he was looking for the eluvian she once tried to find.
Iselia asked Morrigan what it was, what did it do? Morrigan responded that the more appropriate question was to ask where it led? And stepped through the Eluvian.
Iselia gingerly followed and found herself in a strange realm that didn't quite feel like the real world, but it didn't feel like the fade either. Morrigan referred to it as the "in-between."
There so many eluvians lay, most of them dark and powerless, not like the one they had just stepped through. Morrigan declared that this is why the ancient elves left no roads. Only ruins in far-flung places with no obvious manner of travel to reach them. It was because they travelled via the eluvians.
Morrigan declared that while this wasn't the fade, it was very, very close and if someone had enough power... someone like Corypheus... this would very easily be the next entrance to the physical fade.
Corypheus wanted to enter the fade and storm the Black City and become a god in his own right. Since Iselia had stolen the anchor from him, this would be what he was searching for. This was how he was going to get into the fade. They needed to go into the forests, find the old elven temple, and get to the eluvian before he did.
As much as Iselia wanted to run through the forests and find this temple as soon as possible, her men were tired after the battle at Adamant and there were other things that needed to be done.
Varric knew where the source of the red lyrium was coming from. The old thaig that he and Hawke had found... the location had been leaked and red lyrium was being carted out of the depths by the cart-load. They needed to put a stop to it.
Cassandra was looking for the Seekers. The Seekers didn't use lyrium to enhance their abilities like a common templar, so she was certain they weren't under control and were imprisoned somewhere.
Both of those things needed investigating and were perfect for Iselia's small group to look into while the army recuperated.
Before they set off, Iselia checked in with her people. Almost everyone was quite unnerved with what had happened with the Grey Wardens at Adamant. Cole, the spirit in human form, was afraid that someone would bind him like a demon and he wouldn't be helpful anymore. Cassandra was trying to chronicle what had happened so generations from now people would know. And Blackwall was getting drunk... very drunk. So drunk that he disappeared and Iselia couldn't find him.
Her people definitely needed some rest after what had happened. She would definitely not ask them to go to the wilds just yet.
After weeks of searching, Leliana had found a possible location for where Cassandra's lost Seekers were and they hurriedly went to investigate.
Leliana's lead was very good. When they arrived, they were immediately under attack by a group Iselia had never even heard of. Cassandra called them the Promisers and said that it made all the sense that they were involved — the group were akin to a cult and were obsessed with the Seekers.
A note on one of the Promiser's bodies was written by Samson, ex-templar of Kirkwall and Commander for Corypheus' armies. He had given the Promisers the Seekers because apparently Seekers were resistant to the red lyrium. Corypheus had no use for them if they could not be controlled.
Hopefully the Seekers were still alive.
They fought through more of these Promisers and then swept through the castle...
And found a young man, a Seeker, still alive.
Cassandra recognised him immediately. He had been her apprentice. He said that a demon was inside of him, growing, tearing him apart from the inside out. Cassandra was stunned. That shouldn't be possible!
He then told her that it was all the Lord Seeker's fault. He had done all of this. He was in league with the demons and was forcing all of his men to ingest these demons and become this. He had to be stopped.
Cassandra did the man a favour and put him out of his pain and suffering, then they continued through the castle and out into the grounds to find the Lord Seeker.
He openly admitted what he had done, then thrust a book at Cassandra and told her to read it. It was the Book of their Order and had been passed down from Lord Seeker to Lord Seeker throughout the centuries, ever since the original Inquisition. That was what the Seekers were, after all, the remnants of the last time an Inquisition was required to restore order to a mad world.
They had created this mad world with the templar order and mage circles and the constant wars and bickering; they had to end.
Iselia was only too happy to end them.
With the Lord Seeker and his demon-infested men taken care of, they returned to Skyhold so Cassandra could read through this book.
When she was finished, she called Iselia over and they talked. There was more to the mage rebellion than just Hawke's actions in Kirkwall. It had been discovered that there was a way to reverse the Rite of Tranquility... that information had gotten out, and that in conjunction with the Champion's and Anders' actions had thrown all into chaos.
It turned out that the Seekers had always known about the reversal, and indeed performed it on themselves. They were made tranquil during their initiation, then freed from tranquility upon their passage.
Cassandra wondered if she should rebuild the Seekers, make them better than what they had been. But Iselia told her to forget them. It was no longer her burden.
After leaving Cassandra, one of Leliana's people ran over to her and got her attention. The Warden Blackwall was missing, properly. He wasn't just drunk somewhere... he had gone.
There was a page missing in one of their reports and they suspected that he had taken it before running off. It was to do with a hanging in Val Royeaux. Perhaps that's where Blackwall had went.
If that's where Blackwall had disappeared to, that's where Iselia would go too. With so many Wardens being messed around with lately, she needed to keep an eye on him.
Until next time! 🐲⚔️
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