Dragon Age: Inquisition — Story Playthrough — Part Fourteen
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The Inquisition was forced to lay an assault upon the Grey Warden fortress "Adamant." The Warden-Commander was unwittingly following a darkspawn's command and had to be stopped. Iselia's men had taken the fortress. Some of the Wardens had surrendered, but there were plenty of others who had been wholly controlled by Corypheus and had to die.
Now it was time to find the Warden-Commander Clarel and hope she could be reasoned with, and hope that she would believe that this was all Corypheus' doing.
They walked into the centre of the Keep where Warden-Commander Clarel stood alongside the Tevinter Magister, before scores of Wardens and a great rift to the fade.
Some of the Wardens were connected to the rift, allowing their bodies be used to power the thing while Clarel was coerced into summoning a huge, worthy demon through the veil.
Iselia yelled for Clarel to stop, that it was exactly what this Magister wanted. She had no quarrel with the Wardens but they were being used. She had already saved so many because she did not want to fight them. But if they continued to serve Corypheus, she had no choice.
Alistair yelled for the people to listen to them. He had fought the Archdemon in Ferelden. If everything this Magister said was true, he'd be there fighting alongside them, not against them. This was what Corypheus wanted.
Warden-Commander Clarel wasn't sure what to think. She paused the summoning and suggested that maybe she should hear the Inquisitor...
The Magister though, he suddenly yelled that his master had expected the Inquisitor to show up and he had a present for her.
The Archdemon flew down, controlled by the Magister's hand... and Warden-Commander Clarel saw clarity, knowing she had been duped. Her order fought Archdemons, didn't work alongside them.
She shot her magic at the dragon then yelled for her men to help the Inquisitor.
Thanks to the Magister's idiocy, she had seen reason at last.
Clarel chased after the Magister, enraged with him for having destroyed the Grey Wardens, while Iselia and her people were under attack by demons as the archdemon spat red lyrium fireballs at them.
Finally she cornered the Magister... but before she could kill him, the archdemon flew down and almost ate the Warden-Commander whole, but instead spat her out, half-dead upon the ramparts.
The archdemon prowled forward, ready to consume its meal.. when just as it lunged forward, Clarel unleashed one last spell that shot into the dragon's stomach and made it smash into the stone.
While it had stunned the dragon temporarily, it also caused the fortress to collapse beneath its weight. Iselia, Alistair, Hawke, and all of her companions were thrown from the battlements and plummeted into the earth below.
By instinct alone, Iselia managed to raise her hand and create a rift of her own... and everyone fell through it. Safely. Alive. Into the physical fade.
Hawke quipped that if this was the afterlife, the Chantry owed her an apology: this looked nothing like the Maker's bosom... while Alistair ruminated on the last time he had been in the fade, as did Dorian. This was not the fade they had ever experienced.
The fade they had all experienced before was the dream world... this was physical. This was how and where the Tevinter Magisters of old searched for the Maker's Golden City... and corrupted it.
That was a very disturbing thought. They needed to get out of there.
More disturbing — as they continued onward, they found the Divine! Only, Iselia didn't think it was really the Divine, but perhaps a spirit that took on her form. She seemed to have all of Divine Justinia's memories, and also knew all about them and what had been going on in the overworld.
She told them that they were in the Nightmare's lair... a demon that fed upon fear and memories and consumed them. Iselia was missing her memories, was she not? She would find them again here.
And so she did... several wraiths appeared in the area, and once they had killed them, little green orbs appeared. She placed her marked hand against them and took them back into herself.
Then it begun to come back to her.
At the Temple of Sacred Ashes, the Grey Wardens, worked alongside Corypheus to use the Divine as a sacrifice for his ritual. Then, as he was empowering the elven orb he held, Iselia had burst through the doors and interrupted the ritual. The Divine kicked the orb out of Corypheus' hands... and Iselia had picked it up.
It had left the mark — the anchor — upon her. She was no Herald of Andraste. She was just an unfortunate person who stumbled upon something... and touched it at the wrong moment.
The spirit posing as the Divine warned them that the Nightmare now knew of their presence... they would have to take care as they traversed the fade.
As they walked through the Fade, they found long-lost memories from people long forgotten. The journal of an elf who had once served Corypheus before he became a monster. Writings from ancient man hunting with their wolves. The thoughts of the very first Grey Warden who pleaded for a way to end the blight.
They fought through demon after demon, determined to reach the end of the Nightmare and get out of there, but the entire time, the Nightmare demon taunted them with their fears.
It suggested that Dorian looked like his father, that Varric had brought Hawke here to die, that Cassandra had lost her faith in the Maker, and that Hawke would lose Anders just like everyone else she had ever loved. Then it told Alistair that he was just the bastard son of the King. Alistair yelled back that Morrigan had said worse things to him.
Iselia then came across another of her memories... she and the Divine were running through the Fade, demons were chasing them... and then as Iselia went through the rift and back into the overworld, Divine Justinia had died. Everyone had thought that the woman behind Iselia had been Andraste, but it had been the Divine.
This thing really was a spirit... or perhaps even Justinia's soul, trapped down here but wanting to help them. When Iselia suggested that, the spirit said that if that was the tale she wished to tell, it wasn't a bad one.
Whatever it was, it clearly was not a demon. Iselia felt safe around it.
Hawke and Alistair started arguing. Hawke yelled that all of this had been the Grey Wardens fault! Alistair retorted with the fact that Hawke literally tore Kirkwall apart and singlehandedly started the mage rebellion.
Iselia just wanted the both of them to shut up. This was no time to yell and fight against eachother; they needed to get out of there!
Finally they reached the area where the rift would take them back to the overworld... but it was guarded by the Nightmare itself. A great beast unlike any demon she thought had existed.
The spirit of Justinia flew into the beast and distracted it with the last of her essence, while Iselia and her people fought the smaller demon that served it. They killed it just in time for Iselia's companions to flee through the rift, but she, Alistair and Hawke were still behind them.
The great demon beast that Justinia had distracted was distracted no more and stood in their way of escape.
Both Hawke and Alistair yelled that they would stay behind and distract it so the other and Iselia could escape. With the Grey Wardens in disarray they needed a proper leader, she couldn't allow Alistair to stay behind... and the Hero of Ferelden would be devastated. Iselia had heard too much of their story to let Alistair perish here.
She didn't want to make this choice... but she allowed Hawke to stay so they could escape.
They raced back to the overworld and Iselia closed the rift behind her.
In the Overworld, the Wardens had fought the last of the demons side-by-side with the Inquisition, horrified at their mistake. Alistair was now the most senior Warden and they deferred to him for their orders now.
Iselia could either exile the Wardens or allow them to continue helping the Inquisition. Perhaps she wasn't a strong enough leader, but she couldn't exile them... their minds had not been their own and they were wanting to help fix what they had started.
Most of her people were gobsmacked that she allowed the Wardens to help the Inquisition, after all that had happened, but it was Iselia's choice.
After her declaration, Varric looked around and realised Hawke wasn't there. Where was she?... And Iselia had to give him the bad news. That Hawke bravely sacrificed her life to save them.
Varric walked away. Cassandra called after him but he wouldn't hear anything she had to say. He had brought Hawke here... and she had died. Just as he had feared.
Back in Skyhold, Varric wanted to tell one last story about Hawke, and Iselia hugged him as he told it.
After the story was told, he sighed. He had letters to write. Carver and Anders would need to know what had happened.
While Varric was writing his letters, Iselia had some new judgments to perform, both of which related to this Grey Warden incident.
First there was a Warden who had despised what she had done and wanted to be executed so that a message would go out to all of her fellows that what they had done was wrong. Iselia simply exiled her to the deep roads; that was what Wardens did when it was time to die, yes?
Then there was the more important matter of the Tevinter Magister who worked for Corypheus and had warped the minds of the Wardens. He, too, wanted to die, because in death glory awaited him.
Simply because he wanted to die, Iselia sentenced him to spending the rest of his days imprisoned in the deepest, darkest hole they could find.
That sentencing didn't seem to deter him either. If she were a lesser woman, she would've made him tranquil.
After all of that she went to see Cullen to unwind and think of something else other than Wardens and Archdemons and despair.
He took her to a place in Ferelden where he used to go when he was younger and wanted to get away from all the noise. It was a peaceful spot on a great lake... and it definitely took her away from all the noise. It was a perfect place after being trapped in the physical fade surrounded by demons.
While there, he gave her a good luck charm that he had carried since the day he left for templar training and asked her to keep it with her. Just to humour him.
Of course she would.
Until next time! 🐲⚔️
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