I had three main areas left that were in need of a good inquisiting. A hot one, a cold one, and a green one. I wasn’t prepared to deal with yet another desert, so I put that one off until later. The snowy place looked fine, but after all the time I’d spent in palaces and cities, I was eager to get back to something that felt like home. So, into the woods we went. The Emerald Graves, a forest that contains ancient elven burial grounds, was currently home to a man calling himself Fairbanks, who had reached out to the Inquisition for help. He had been guiding the refugees of the Orlesian civil war to safety and was under attack by the Freemen of the Dales, our old friends from the Exalted Plains. When I say “friends,” I of course mean “people to throw fire at.” And, while all that was very important, I can’t tell you how nice it was to just be in an enjoyable environment for once. Obviously, things were still trying to kill us at every turn, but that happened everywhere we went, so we might as well do it in a place that’s nice during the downtime.
No sand, no rain, no lightning, just green. And some grey and brown and blue, and a little orange, and… Okay, a bunch of colors, but mainly green.
When we reached Fairbanks’ base of operation, he let us know that the Freemen were working with the Red Templars and pointed us in the direction of a nearby mine. We stormed the place to free the refugee prisoners and cleared out the Freemen, who were commanded by a rogue Chantry sister of all things. She was even sporting full plate armor and wielding a shield and mace. Taking her down led us, in turn, to a villa in the middle of the forest. The previous owner had abandoned it due to the civil war, and a Freemen leader, Maliphant, had taken up residence there. After taking out the absolute giant of a man he had guarding the front door, Mal was the next to go down. And, sure enough, he had been smuggling red lyrium for the Red Templars. After that, we mopped up the rest of the Freemen scattered about and then helped Fairbanks and his people move into a more secure and comfortable location. Even with all of that taken care of, there was still much inquisiting left to be done in the area. RaMOs were scattered about, Red Templars and the odd Freeman still roamed the area, there were Fade rifts to close, the usual. A notable adventure was the exorcising of a haunted house, complete with undead randomly rising and light sources inexplicably igniting themselves. The family who had owned the place had a daughter that showed magical talent at a young age. That wouldn’t have played well in noble circles and done damage to their precious reputation, so they hid her away in their cabin in the woods and tried to ignore it. This, of course, is one of the worst things you can do with a fledgling mage, and the result was predictably tragic. Without proper training, it wasn’t long before a demon found her. She ended up possessed and her family and everyone else in the place ended up dead. I was glad we were able to put her to rest.
Since that was depressing, and since we haven’t seen her in a while, here’s Scout Harding. Still adorable.
As we made our way through the forest, we could hear big things moving about in the distance, but the trees kept us from seeing what was making all the racket until they were practically on top of us. It turns out the northern part of the Emerald Graves is home to quite a few giants, none of whom liked us wandering through their territory. Unfortunately, the big lugs were between us and an elven ruin that needed inquisiting. We avoided them as best we could, but had to take down a few on the way. We also got to witness one of them squashing several Red Templars who had stupidly gotten too close to the one-eyed behemoth, which made the whole ordeal worth it, really. The ruin was the tomb of the Emerald Knights, a group of warriors who had guarded the old elven kingdom. When we got there, it was full of Venatori searching for something. If that had been it, I would have taken them down, but they had slaughtered not only my men but a group of innocent Dalish, part of the clan we’d met back in the Exalted Plains, who had also been investigating the area. So, they had earned my full ire, not just the everyday sort. In the end, the ruin was home to a powerful undead who was guarding history-changing information in the form of a scroll that detailed the beginning of the conflict that wound up ending the Dales. Apparently, instead of the one-sided stories told by each of the opposing factions, it all started with forbidden love and a misunderstanding. I took it back to the Dalish in the Exalted Plains and hoped that shedding some light on the tragic incident would spur some understanding and healing for both groups.
Complete with statues depicting the very important figures of a big owl and Faceless, Armless Wing Lady, or FAWL for short.
One of the small tasks that I took care of in the Graves ended up leading to something much larger. We came across an urn containing the remains of a former resident of the area. Unfortunately, his wife had been unable to fulfill his last wish of having his ashes spread off the cliffs of the northern Graves because of the turmoil in the area. Impossible for her, easy enough for us. What nobody ever bothered to mention was that a dragon had taken up residence right next to the spreading site. We snuck around the beast and did what we went up there to do, but seeing the monster gave me an idea. An idea that was simultaneously the greatest and dumbest I’d had in quite a while. Both of which are saying a lot. You see, as I’d continued honing my skills as a Knight-Enchanter, I’d begun to notice something. One of the basic mage spells is a barrier, just a magic force field that stops heavy, sharp, explody, etc. things from hurting us. It’s quite handy when you’re wearing cloth robes and find yourself next to a man with a giant axe that wants to kill you. And it works perfectly, but not for very long, it can only take so many hits and decays on its own with time. Well, the primary idea of a Knight-Enchanter was to allow a mage to survive in melee combat thanks to a powerful spectral sword and a significantly stronger barrier. A barrier that I learned to reinforce with the damage I inflicted. The more I hurt my opponents, the longer my barrier would last. Meaning if I hurt my opponents enough, something I was quite good at, my barrier would never falter. To sum up, I was nigh invincible. Remember when I needed to find poetry books to woo Cassandra and struck out on my own? I won a close-quarters fight with several well-armed bandits without taking a scratch. And remember when we fought the dragon as a team in the Western Approach and it was actually pretty easy? I think you can see where this is going. When I saw the Greater Mistral in the Graves, a question popped into my head: could I take down one of the mightiest beasts in Thedas by myself? Long story short: you’re damned right I could! Thanks to a combination of power, skill, patience, and strategic use of rubble, I successfully slayed a dragon in one-on-one combat. I will assume you are all suitably impressed with this phenomenal feat and pause for a moment to allow it to properly sink in.
Come on, big girl!
