Dragon Age: Inquisition — Story Playthrough — Part Twenty-Two
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It had been two years since the Inquisition had defeated Corypheus. Leliana was now known as Divine Victoria, Varric was the Viscount of Kirkwall, and Iselia and Cullen had wed in a secret ceremony away from prying eyes.
They were at the Winter Palace in Halamshiral in Council with Orlais and Ferelden, trying to work out the future of the Inquisition now that it was really no longer required, when a qunari body had been found. Iselia grabbed her companions and, just like old times, went off on an adventure to find out where this qunari had come from.
They discovered that the qunari were trying to infiltrate the Winter Palace via the use of elven eluvians and Iselia needed to return to Leliana as soon as possible to warn her before it was too late.
Stepping back through the eluvians and into the Winter Palace, Iselia quickly found Leliana and pulled her, Josephine and Cullen aside. The qunari were attacking.
Josephine was as confused as Iselia. The qunari were supposed to be their allies! What was going on? And all of this in the middle of such important talks. Both Ferelden and Orlais were insulted that Iselia had up and left in the middle of their conversation, this was not going well at all!
Iselia told her to placate them as best she could. There were more important things to deal with right now.
Heading down to the courtyard where a small tavern had been hastily constructed, Iselia found Iron Bull. She asked him how the Alliance was doing between the Inquisition and the Qunari and he said that whatever had happened must've been a mistake... and that if she took him with her on her next excursion, he would ask them personally.
It was a tempting idea, but she'd rather he get drunk here than do anything to further aggravate the situation. They would investigate this further without his help.
Gathering her people, Iselia headed back through the eluvian and into the crossroads... only to see a handful of qunari racing towards an eluvian they couldn't access before.
They hurried to follow them... and found themselves in the deep roads. A very lyrium-riddled deep roads, but at least it was regular blue and not red.
The qunari had an entire operation down here!
Curious, Iselia crept closer... if she didn't know any better, she'd assume this was a mining operation, but that was impossible; only dwarves could mine lyrium.
Taking care not to draw attention to themselves, they snuck around the activity and then found a man, a human man, sitting by himself at a campfire. Iselia leapt down and questioned him.
Apparently this man was once a templar of Kirkwall, but he had converted to the Qun when the qunari were in the city as Knight-Commander Meredith was insane and he wanted the stability of the Qun. But he couldn't handle it anymore. The qunari in charge of this operation may as well be as mad as Meredith herself.
The qunari in charge believed that Iselia and the Inquisition were agents of Fen'harel, the dread wolf, and was farming all of this lyrium for the Saarebas — qunari mages — for a future operation they were naming "Dragon's Breath." It was to put the South in its place. The qunari were going to invade!
Iselia thanked him for his information and let him go free. She and her people had a lyrium mine to collapse.
They swept across the outskirts of the mine, taking care not to alert the qunari, and discovered several mining platforms that were surrounding by the qunari explosive, gaatlock, that they just needed to prime. That should do the trick.
In the centre of the mine was a large command centre that had been created in the midst of some ruins... elven ruins, in the dwarven deep roads... and a qunari mage awaited them. The battle was fierce. The sarebaas knew some magic that Iselia had never seen before! But they were soon successful, found some primers, and prepared to blow up this mine.
Each time they caused an explosion, more qunari came upon them to try and stop them. But these qunari were unprepared to face the renowned Inquisitor and her people. All the qunari perished. And so did the mine.
And if they weren't quick, they'd perish too as water poured through the ruins of the mine and filled the entire cavern. If they weren't quick, they'd drown!
They raced through the remains of the mine, slipping and sliding over the wet platforms as they splashed through the outpour of water...
And leapt back through the eluvian and back to the Winter Palace.
Iselia hurried to Josephine, Cullen and Leliana to warn them all of this Dragon's Breath plan, and that the qunari thought they were working with Fen'harel, and they were halfway through discussions when Arl Teagan and the Orlesian Ambassador barged in.
They were peeved that the Inquisition had not told them of the qunari body that had been found, and now one of the Inquisition soldiers was harassing Orlesian servants! When would it end? The Inquisition acted as the solution to every problem — one of these days they were going to start a war!
Iselia and Josephine shared grimaces. Should they tell them now that the qunari were already on the warpath? No, no... they'd keep that to themselves too. They could deal with it.
Iselia went to see what this was all about with one of her guards and a servant... and discovered a jar of gaatlok disguised as wine, and on the ground was a note written in the qunari language.
She gave it to Leliana who had a basic knowledge of the language thanks to her time with Iron Bull. Apparently when the duty had been performed, someone was meant to commune with the Viddasala, leader of this group of qunari, through another eluvian. Iselia would go and find out once and for all what this was all about.
They quickly found the eluvian that was described in the note... and walked into what appeared to be a great library. Books upon books were everywhere, as were scrolls that seemed more memory than written word. It was peculiar.
A spirit spoke to them and welcomed them, and also warned them that someone had come in recently and woke the librarians. They should beware of the librarians.
The spirit could be found in several regions of the library, and each time it told them new information about the past, about what had happened here.
It seemed that long ago, the fade and the waking world were as one place. But then Fen'harel, the Dread Wolf, had separated the two with a veil that weakened magic. In doing so, all the magical, ancient cities of the elves were destroyed. That's what had happened to this library.
Despite the curiousness of this situation, there were still qunari in here and they attacked whenever they saw Iselia and her group... and they still hadn't found the Vidasalla.
They had to keep combing this library and the puzzles within to find her.
It didn't take long, thankfully.
They connected a path that had been broken, walked through another eluvian, and at last found the Vidasalla.
Apparently this qunari was shocked that after the Inquisition had fulfilled its purpose, the mage inquisitor with her magic hand was allowed to remain free. This terrible magic needed to be destroyed and the entire South needed to bow down to the Qun and see reason. Especially since the Inquisition was working with Fen'harel himself.
Iselia had no idea what the woman was talking about and said as much, but the Vidasalla ignored her, turned her men upon her, and walked away.
A score of qunari set upon them, but with Dorian's haste magic and her own fade rift magic they were decimated in seconds. Iselia did not have time for this! She needed to find where the Vidasalla went and once again warn her people of what was coming.
Rushing back through the eluvian pathway to get back to the Winter Palace to inform her people of the new information she had discovered, she found her people in disarray.
More and more gaatlok barrels were being found all over. In Kirkwall, in the Free Marches, in Ferelden, in Orlais. They were everywhere. The qunari were going to kill them all. Josephine was beside herself and started accusing her own Inquisition of treachery, and then, the magic bound in the anchor upon Iselia's fist burst into life and made her fall to her knees in pain.
She hadn't felt pain like this since she had first got the mark.
For the first time since this all began, Iselia lost her cool and shouted about how inconsiderate and ungrateful this entire world was. She defeated Corypheus, saved lives, closed the breach, no one cared, and now her own hand was trying to kill her.
She glared at everyone and told them to keep fighting amongst themselves, she was going to find the Vidasalla and settle this qunari threat once and for all.
Stalking out of the room, she headed back to the eluvian and wished that Morrigan had never introduced her to these damned things.
Until next time! 🐲⚔️
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