Dragon Age: Inquisition — Story Playthrough — Part Nine
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The Inquisition had stumbled across a great fortress known as Skyhold. After the events of Haven, it was the perfect place to set up their banner and act as their base of operations.
Iselia had been declared the Inquisitor of the Inquisition, the one who would lead them against the madness and bring order to the world, and their first order of business was to find out more about Corypheus, their enemy. Varric had brought Hawke to Skyhold to discuss things with Iselia, and now Iselia had... an absolute bucketload on her plate.
There was lots to do.
Before Haven had fallen, some of the Inquisition's soldiers had disappeared in the Fallow Mire. Leliana's scouts had found them... they had been taken by the Avvar, and now the Avvar wanted to challenge Iselia. They thought that making Iselia pay attention to them in this fashion would make her accept that challenge.
They had been correct. She wanted her men back. She would face whatever challenge was necessary.
Scout Harding warned Iselia that this Mire was also full of the undead. Just lovely.
They wandered the Fallow Mire in search for their missing men, constantly under attack by the undead every time one of them dared to even put the tip of their boots into the water.
There was so much water around, the undead just kept coming.
As they travelled through the Mire, they found beacons they could light with Iselia's Fade Fire which drew most of the undead and some demons too, to where they were and they could fight them on solid land.
There were several of these beacons that led a path through the entire Fallow Mire. Iselia activated all of them and soon they had a safe route from the camp and throughout the Mire.
They would still have to be careful when touching the water, but it was much safer now than it was before. There was still no sign of the Avvar or the missing soldiers though.
They soon came across one Avvar though. He was not there to hurt them or kill them, but was ruminating on the tears in the veil and the scar in the sky. Apparently the rest of the Avvar were waiting for her though. They wanted to kill her.
Iselia asked if her men were alright. Yes. They were still alive.
They hurried onward to save the men.
Over a bridge surrounded by the undead, Iselia and her group powered through to the fortress on the other side. They dispatched of a few men that had been guarding the entrance then stormed in through the main gates.
There, the leader of this group of Avvar awaited them — awaited her. He called out for the Herald of Andraste to face him, and she did so with great pleasure.
Weaving her new-found Rift magic around the man, she tore him asunder through the veil and soon he had been defeated.
In a locked room at the side of the keep were her soldiers, some were injured but they were all alive. Iselia gave them directions to their new base at Skyhold and they were eager to get on their way.
Iselia was sure that she would be back in the Fallow Mire at some point, it seemed like an interesting place to explore, but for now she would go back to Skyhold and tell everyone to expect their missing soldiers soon.
Before leaving though, the Avvar she had spoken with before coming across this fortress stopped her. He didn't want to kill her for what she had done to his fellow Avvar, but wanted to join her. She would accept help wherever it came from, and this man, although an Avvar, seemed honourable enough.
On the way back to Skyhold, Dorian and Blackwall seemed a bit hostile towards one another. Dorian was asking Blackwall about where he was recruiting and made a jab about the Wardens recruiting murderers and scum. Blackwall stated that the men and women the Wardens recruited wished to redeem themselves and all of them would die to do so.
Back in Skyhold, much had improved in their short absence. Several people had gotten to work starting repairs of the Keep and all the rubble that had spread out across the floor was now cleaned up. There were several people, nobles included, making small-talk and it was starting to look like a proper throne room, ready to receive guests. Ignoring the scaffolding, of course.
Now that the throne had been set up a little nicer, there were some judgements to perform.
Apparently that morning, after they had returned from the Fallow Mire, an Avvar attacked Skyhold... with a goat.
After speaking with the Avvar, Iselia learnt that he held no bad blood for her but was more thanking her for removing his idiot son who had dared capture her soldiers. His son had been tasked with attacking roving bands of Tevinters in the area, not the Inquisition.
Accepting the man's answer, Iselia sentenced him and his clan to leaving these lands... with as many weapons as they could carry to Tevinter, where they could perform their attacks a little more adequately.
Next was the matter of the Magister Alexius...
Iselia had to think long and hard about what she would do to this man. She wanted nothing more than to execute him, but the Inquisition's needs outweighed petty vengeance. Finally, she tasked him with continuing his magical research in her name — after all, he had performed the impossible with the time magic he had created — but he would remain under guard.
With those matters attended to, Iselia checked in on her people.
Cullen had discovered that the red templars were ferrying the red lyrium around the countryside and had found possible trade routes for the stuff. If Iselia could check it out and get rid of the stuff so that the templars didn't have quite so much power, that would be great... he then mentioned his own issues with lyrium. More normal lyrium. Apparently he hadn't had any lyrium since Kirkwall; it had been months now. Templars who stopped taking lyrium could go mad, they could also die. He told Iselia that he had Cassandra watching over him, ready to dismiss him if he seemed to lose his competence.
Worried for him, she tried to talk to him further but there was nothing else to say on the matter.
Leliana was more sound of mind now and was happy to talk to Iselia. They spoke of the Divine and Leliana's past as a friend to the Hero of Ferelden. Varric wasn't sure if he belonged in the Inquisition but Iselia asked him to stay as her friend. Blackwall spoke of his youth, fighting in a grand tourney alongside a chevalier. And Cole was out "helping" another person, freeing them from their pain.
With the judgements rendered and Skyhold under repair, and her people working together nicely for the time being, Iselia grabbed Cassandra, Varric and Dorian and headed to Crestwood to find Hawke's Grey Warden friend.
When they got there, however, Scout Harding was awaiting them. It was another area rich with the walking dead and had been flooded ten years ago during the blight. There was also a rather large rift in the centre of the flooded village. They would need to clear it. Somehow. There was no sign of Hawke's Grey Warden friend just yet, he was hiding himself very well.
Iselia nodded and prepared her people. They had just crawled out an undead ridden swamp and were now entering another one.
This undead-ridden swamp, however, seemed a bit livelier than the Farrow Mire. There were actually people here, not just barbarians.
There was a girl being attacked by the undead on the bridge, and Grey Wardens were helping her. Iselia rushed over to help also, moreso to question the Wardens than anything else.
Once the undead were dead again, they told her that they were looking for a Warden named Alistair. He was in hiding and they had been sent to capture him and bring him back to their Commander.
Iselia did not tell them that was who she was looking for too. It seemed odd that they were hunting for the very one they needed...
In the village of New Crestwood, they spoke with the mayor. The light in the lake — the rift — had appeared a few days ago, and near immediately afterwards the dead had come out of the lake. He suspected that the rift was in the caves below Old Crestwood. It had been flooded during the Blight, he said. The darkspawn had broken the dam controls and the water had flushed out across the village.
The dam controls in a nearby fort that once fixed would drain the lake and allow them access to the caves, but it had been taken over by bandits.
Iselia said that bandits were no match for her and prepared to go off to fight them. The mayor seemed disappointed, like he didn't want the lake drained... but he had no choice. That was also odd.
They quickly found the fort the mayor spoke of and fought through the bandits. There weren't that many there, but Crestwood didn't seem to have much of a guard-force so it was no wonder the bandits were allowed to take control of it.
After defeating the bandits, Iselia decided to claim this keep in the name of the Inquisition and sent word for some of her men to arrive here and make a presence in the area.
While her people were setting up, they looked for the dam controls... and found them, in perfect working order. So much for the darkspawn breaking them... why had the mayor lied?
In any event, it was time to investigate the remains of the flooded village, find the caves, remove the rift that was allowing spirits access to the corpses in the village, then find Alistair and Hawke.
Until next time! 🐲⚔️
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