Adventures in Thedas

Just a quick note to let everyone know I had to have major surgery on my shoulder, so I'm one arm/handed for a while.  I'll be back to blogging and gaming as soon as I'm able! 

After escaping from Howe's men Duncan and I traveled south, heading towards Ostagar.  That's where the other grey wardens were, and where everyone had been fighting the darkspawn.  More importantly, to me, my brother was there as well as King Cailan and I had some revenge to exact.

I've been looking for you.

 We had barely arrived when the first person we spotted was Cailan.  I instantly recognized him, I'd seen him a few times in Denerim with my father. We ran up to him so we could inform him of Howe's treachery, but first the king had to talk about grey warden stuff and riding in to battle all glorious and smiting the darkspawn.  He seemed pretty disappointed that an arch demon (whatever that is) hadn't made an appearance yet. Then his attention turned to me, merely to talk about me being a "promising recruit", and wait I looked familiar to him, had we met before. I explained to him that, yes, we had met in Denerim my father was the teryn of Highever.

Finally

 Duncan managed to finally get a word in and described what we had just been through. Cailan was surprisingly sympathetic and promised my family justice.  I had to make sure justice meant that Howe's neck would be in a noose, it did.

My next priority was to find Fergus and tell him what had happened, not something I was looking forward to, but Cailan told me he was out scouting in the Korcari wilds and wouldn't be back until after the next battle.

Man doesn't even let me settle in

 Duncan sent me off to get acquainted with the camp and find the two other recruits that were waiting for our return.  I was also suppose to find a grey warden named Alistair and bring him back as well.

So off I went, looking around camp.  I met a lovely older mage by the name of Wynne. (See mod oopsies!) A couple of sisters of the Chantry were running around, offering prayers to the Maker for soldiers in the upcoming battle.  One was seeing to a very sick soldier who was letting me know we are all going to die. I backed away slowly.  I found Daveth, one of the other recruits, near a vendor trying to pick up a soldier. Then he turned his attention on me,  uggh, he was quite surprised that I was the last recruit they had been waiting for.  Apparently nobody told him that women can carry a sword. Then there were some ash warriors.  They go in to battle with their own mabari hounds, so I had a lot of respect for them.  Maybe if this grey warden thing doesn't work out for me I'll look in to joining their order.

Didn't you look a lot more sickly last time I saw you?

I stumbled upon the king's tent, he hadn't made it back there yet but I sweet talked the guard into letting me talk to Teryn Loghain.  He came out and talked with me for a few minutes.  I figured he's Cailan's advisor I may as well make sure everyone that's helpful knows about what happened to my family.  Loghain didn't seem all that upset about what Howe had done.  He did tell me that he was sure Cailan meant everything he said.  There was just something about the way he said it that made me uneasy, like Cailan wasn't actually going to follow through.  Loghain has always given me the creeps, I'd seen him the few times I'd been in Denerim.  Though he did have a slightly more healthy glow to him than he had in the past.

Next up was Ser Jory who all-in-all was pretty damn whiny and skittish for a grey warden recruit.  Him and Daveth had both mentioned to me about some ritual we were going to have to go through, but it was all hush-hush until we actually did it. Jory wasn't much for chit chat so after learning I was the person they were waiting on he rushed off to find Duncan.

He's awfully happy to be in a cage. . .

Well all that was left was to find this guy Alistair, but I spied a guy sitting in a cage so I went up to see what his story was.  I was instantly a bit uncomfortable.  The least they could have done was give him a loin cloth. . . 
 After averting my noble born eyes I found out that he had been caught sneaking around camp in the middle of the night and figured him a deserter so they tossed him in the cage until somebody could figure out what to do with him.  In his defense he wasn't deserting he was sneaking around to steal stuff, in the army's defense he was sneaking around to steal stuff so he could desert.  He hadn't eaten in a couple of days so he promised to give me a key to a chest near the mages.  I didn't want to know how he had kept that smuggled from the guards, but I did get him so food from his jailer and he handed over the key, which I promptly washed before sticking in my pack.

Mages get harassed if you look at them wrong, surely you know that templar.

Finally!  There was Alistair, but when I arrived he was sassing a mage.  To be fair the mage started it, biting off the poor guy's head for merely telling him that the revered mother wanted to see him. I don't see what's so bad about that, but then I'm not a mage so nobody's trying to kill me...except for Howe.



I instantly liked this guy though, he had a great since of humor.

Can darkspawn talk? And if they could would it be about us holding hands?

yup that's me

And then of course he should have 'instantly recognized' me.  Why does everyone in this camp know me?  I could understand them all knowing Fergus, he was the next Teyrn of Highever.  I'm just the second born who's decent with a bow.  I wonder if Fergus got all this when he first got here.

Like what? Like you're incredibly adorable? Sorry not going to happen.

Then it hit him, "Hey you're a girl!".  I've been getting that ever since I got here too, but at least he was just remarking on how few grey wardens are women. Then he said he wish there were more and then he was afraid that I would think him some awful lecher.  It was kind of cute seeing him stumble over himself.  I told him I looked forward to working with him and that caught him off guard too.  Is everyone mean to this poor boy?  Here I figured it was just mages since he use to be a templar. 

Put her and my mom on the front lines and the darkspawn would scurry back to their hole.

Then back to Duncan finally to get this ritual under way.  I came here to be a grey warden so let's get on with it.  I've got some darkspawn to slay and some revenge to see to.  The faster the blight is over, the faster Cailan gets back to Denerim and hangs Howe.  First Duncan had to chastise Alistair for 'sassing' the mage.  I thought his sassing was completely called for, that mage was a jerk, but, alas, I'm not in charge here so I wisely kept my mouth shut less Duncan decide I'm not grey warden material. 

So the first thing we had to do was go out in to the Korcari wilds and kill some darkspawn and get 3 vials of their blood. Meh easy enough, killing darkspawn is what wardens do!  Secondly we had to go find some treaties of long ago and bring them back.  If this was a true blight we may need to call in some allies.  Fair enough , off to the wilds then!

Action time!