Of Demons and Nightmares – Julie Replays Dragon Age Pt. 3

With Ostagar finally behind us, we’re on to Lothering, where we rob the poor villagers of all loose stuff we can get our hands on. We find money, armour, weapons and herbs, just lying about in crates and sacks and piles of filth, all the while everyone in the village tells us that they have no money, food, weapons, herbs and armour.

Well.

My least favourite thing in games – looting in places of poverty and despair. So not thought through by the developers. I’m all for “more immersion and less loot”. But we get our favourite bard, Leliana! Hooray!

Surprisingly enough, all my companions make a passionate speech about how we should totally save that murderer (and he mutters something about “Do you know nothing of regret” and I was like “Hnnnnnnnnnng!”) and so Sten joins us after all.

And finally, after slaying and scaring off bandits, bears and yucky spiders, finding dead mothers, getting info about a sick arl and comforting children, we are off to find someone to help u- oh crap, an attack.

And thus, Zevran joins us. Which was actually kind of tricky. Him meeting us so early in the game is thanks to a mod which also means, he and his team are a bit better than the player’s party, so the “not getting killed” part took me some effort. But yay, flirting and all! 😀

Back in Lothering (which is by now overrun with darkspawn and I do hope those few templars brought everyone out) we heard that SOMETHING happened at the Circle of Mages and that they might have been all slain, so that is our first stop. True enough, the circle is closed off. We manage to talk our way into it, get Wynne, leave Leliana with the children and take Alistair, Zevran and Wynne into the circle to save Irving and the rest.

I do like the Circle very much, questwise. It’s intruiging, exiting and with a lot of information and a moderate amount of fighting. Also, ALL THE WEIRD SIDEQUESTS! o/

No, really, I love them, especially in the Circle. They’re so… weird and cool! (You once find a mage hidden in a closet, super funny scene.) Summoning spirits, fighting demons and reading notes – awesome. And yes, I’m also totally with Anna concerning the Fade part. I LOVE it! I love the four forms you get, I love the implications, the nightmares/dreams of your companions – it’s awesome. So when we meet Sloth…

… the ugly bastard, I’m acutally looking forward to this:

OC I can understand that first “dream” part for the main character and that they didn’t want to or couldn’t make various starting points for all the various origins. IC however does Sloth not do a very good job. Giving Fian “peace” and “everything she ever wanted” by putting her in Weisshaupt with Duncan? Yeah, not so much. Killing her way through the Fade is ergo not so much an effort of “pulling herself out of a dream” as it could’ve been – and as it was for Alistair. There is only one point in the Fade I hate. so. much. This one:

Six or seven mage opponents, all getting you SO fast with fireballs and stunns – having acquired only two other forms so far, that was reeeeeeeeeally hard. I think I died eight or ten times before setting the difficulty down, dying four more times and then killing them all in like four seconds. Whatever. They killed each other by stupidly throwing firestorm over the whole group. Dumbasses. Apart from that, all demons were pretty down-forward, especially since one cannot really be killed in Golem form. ALL THE DAMAGE!! o/

In the end, after getting out, obtaining the Litany of Andralla of poor Niall’s body, talking to a nearly-crazy-and-super-mage-hating Cullen, the acutal endgame – facing Uldred – was pretty easy. Astoundingly easy. Despite sorely missing my Golem form (it is really nice being able to shapeshift!).

IC, saving the mages was a no-brainer for Fian, despite Cullen’s desperate-angry cries for annulment and “kill’em all!” Greagoire and Irving both kind of look at Cullen like “Yeah, poor baby, shut up.” (Which is also unfair, him having been through all of that torture – and makes what happens in the following games to Cullen a bit more believable.) But “killing everyone just because” is hitting somewhat close for Fian and even though she never really knew any mages, Wynne hasn’t been anything but nice to her and Fian is really not prepared to kill innocents just because they have something others don’t.

Like pointy ears. Y’know.

Having secured the mages’ help, we find a dying man in a Bannorn, get the “Return to Ostagar” quest and return to camp to flirt some more with Zevran and have an awkward conversation with Leliana that starts with “Did you always live in an alienage? Was it very terrible?” and giving her something to think about. (I just recently read a pretty cool fan theory about Leliana’s mother being Dalish, btw, if you’re interested.)

Next stop: Redcliffe. And yeah, now we know about Alistair’s dad. Fian doesn’t really know what to think about that yet – and Alistair being pretty openly and sweetly interested in her doesn’t make it better. We already had a pretty funny party banter between him and Zevran in the Circle, with Alistair asking Zevran about his “intentions” toward Fian. Fian and Wynne shared some pointed looks during that conversation…

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