After discovering the Grey Wardens’ balmy demon-summoning plan, we tracked the rest of the order to Adamant Fortress, which was a brand-new Warden stronghold in pristine condition, having just been built and no it wasn’t, it was an ancient semi-ruin. It was still a tough nut to crack, however, so a quick stop at Skyhold to marshal the Inquisition forces was necessary. This was going to be the first real test of our military might, and we needed it to go as smoothly as possible. The plan was simple: Cullen and the bulk of our forces would smash their way into the fortress and clear a path for me to get to Warden-Commander Clarel, and Erimond, more than likely, and hopefully stop all this nonsense. That part went off without a hitch, and I infiltrated Adamant. I made sure to spare the Wardens who didn’t want any part of the blood magic malarkey, and helped clear the battlements for my troops. Amongst the other, everyday demons were a few GAHLLTISTs, which I hadn’t seen in a while. Hawke, who is practically a force of nature, helped me take one of them down before I had her aid the rest of my soldiers. We kept pushing forward until we reached the heart of the fortress. Clarel and Eri were there, completing a ritual to pull something gigantic and horrific out of the Fade. Fortunately, after some convincing by me and my companions, Clar saw reason and turned on Eri. Unfortuantely, the Venatori had brought along Cory’s pet dragon to even the odds. He called it down on us, summoned a GAHLLTIST for good measure, and ran, with Clar in hot pursuit.
Dragon fire above, GAHLLTIST on fire below.
Even with the dragon raining red lyrium bombs on us, Hawke, Stroud, and my crew took the GAHLLTIST down and went after Clarel and Erimond. The path through the castle dead-ended overlooking a cliff, where Clar had Eri cornered. He was no match for the Warden-Commander, but he still had an ace up his sleeve. A big, scaly, scary ace. When we caught up with them, so did the dragon, and things didn’t go well for Clar.
How not well? Very not well.
With the Warden-Commander out of the way, the dragon started coming for us. Unfortunately for it, Clar was somehow only mostly dead and let loose with one final attack. The beast was wounded, and in its panic destroyed the platform we were standing on before flying off. We tried to run, but it was no use. We fell, my hand started glowing, and suddenly we were… somewhere else.
I shall call this strange new place the Upside-Down. Wait, it’s the Fade? Never mind, then. Bit of a shame, though, that’s a good name.
Buckle up, because this is a weird one. Even for me. As we plummeted to our doom, I guess my glowy hand opened up a rift into the Fade that we fell into. Now, you’re not really supposed to go into the Fade physically, seeing as how the last time someone had done that, the darkspawn happened, and everyone who had tried since had died, but Hawke, Stroud, my companions and I just had. More breaking the rules of reality with the power of glowy hand. It was a reaction, one I couldn’t willfully replicate, so there was nothing we could do other than find a way out. Our best bet was to head to the Fade rift that Eri had been trying to use to pull some giant demon into our world. I’d forgotten to seal it in the rush to pursue him. Lucky, that. The Fade itself is… difficult to describe. It’s like a twisted echo of our world, very similar in many ways, but lots of the physical laws we follow aren’t quite right over there. It’s a real place that your spirit goes when you sleep, so you’ve been there, you just don’t remember it. Unless you’re a dwarf, then you haven’t been there, because dwarves don’t go there. And unless you’re a mage, because we remember it. Since it’s where most of us go when we dream, it’s filled with the random thoughts of sleeping people, which are just as weird to encounter physically as it sounds. And, of course, demons live there. Well, demons and spirits, which are technically the same thing. Demons are just manifestations of bad things like rage and sloth, while spirits represent good things like hope and valor.
Oddly, we encountered a friendly face not far into our adventure in slumber-land. Divine Justinia V was just waiting for us to walk by. The Divine Justinia V that, if you recall, died at the Conclave, at the start of all this. Or, a spirit or demon that had taken on her likeness. Whatever it was, it was helpful and knew about what we were up against. We were in the domain of Nightmare, a very old and very powerful fear demon, who, because Corypheus had been allied with it for some time, had possession of my memories from the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Which took the form of demons we had to kill, at which point my memories would come back. Because the Fade, I guess. Meaning that, besides the otherworldly locale and Nightmare constantly trying to intimidate us, it was pretty much business as usual. Kill demons, loot everything in sight, and help those in need. Except the demons were sometimes physical manifestations of my memories, we were pulling items out of chunks of crystal instead of chests and bags, and helping the people in need took the form of assuaging the fears of sleepers who had been pulled into the fear demon’s realm. Because the Fade, I guess. Then, we encountered a new type of demon. Basically, fear demon juniors, little offshoots of the big one that took the form of whatever we were scared of. Some saw spiders, some saw maggots, I saw… You know what, you don’t need to know what I saw. After reclaiming more of my memories, the Justinia we’d been talking to revealed herself to be a spirit that had taken the Divine’s form. Or some kind of echo of Justinia. I don’t really know, actually, but she was made of light now.
Spirit or not, she is still rocking that hat.
While Nightmare had been trying to frighten us, he’d let slip that the demon army summoned by the Grey Wardens actually answered to him. Meaning if we got him out of the way, we got rid of his demonic troops, too. After making our way to the rift, we finally encountered him in the flesh. Oh, so much flesh. We’d kept hearing about how big he’d grown off of all the fear that he had been feeding on for, I don’t know, centuries, at least, but I wasn’t expecting anything quite so mountainous.
You’re going to fight THAT?
Before we could start trying to cut down the behemoth, spirit-Justinia sacrificed herself to get it out of our way. All that was left was the much smaller, but still icky, Aspect of the monstrosity. It was tough, but we managed to take it down. My squad made it through the rift, but Hawke, Stroud and I were cut off by the recurring Nightmare. Both of them wanted to clear a path, but eventually Stroud paid for the sins of his fellow Grey Wardens with his life, hacking away at Nightmare to give us the opportunity to escape. Popping back out of the rift into Adamant, I closed it behind me, cutting off Nightmare from his army and effectively releasing the Wardens from Cory's control. With all of their ranking officers dead, they needed a new purpose. While they had almost plunged the continent into chaos with their monumental stupidity, they had done so with the best of intentions. I hoped that with a bit of Inquisitorial guidance, and using Stroud as an inspiration, they could once again become the heroes most people thought they were. And, before I change the subject, Hawke headed to Weisshaupt, the headquarters of all the Wardens, to let the rest of their order know what had happened.
In death, sacrifice. In mustache, awesomeness.
While the potential redemption of the Grey Wardens and the loss of Corypheus’ demon army was a massive shift in the war, some of the most significant fallout from the battle at Adamant came in the form of my recovered memories. We finally knew the truth about what had happened at the Temple of Sacred Ashes and the origin of my glowy hand. Thanks to Cory and Solas, we had already known that it was caused by the Anchor, a mark granted by the Orb of Destruction, an immensely powerful elven artifact that allowed one to manipulate the Veil, opening and closing gateways between our world and the Fade. What we didn’t know is why I had that power. Most people had already made up their minds, hence the bowing and “Herald of Andraste” title. But, in reality, Cory had been at the Conclave and used some sort of ritual involving Divine Justinia to try and graft the Anchor onto himself. Just before the spell was completed, I heard Most Holy’s calls for help and burst into the room, causing enough chaos for the Anchor-granting artifact to go flying. When I picked it up, Cory’s ritual finished, just not on his intended target. And thusly was the great glowy-hand mystery solved.
“When it glows… does it hurt?” “Every time.”
I was just the right elf in the right place at the right time. I wasn’t some kind of chosen one, I wasn’t fulfilling a destiny laid out for me, and no god singled me out to save the world. Of course, that’s just how I look at it. Even if I say that, there will be many people, more devout than me, who will say the Maker put me there for a reason. I just think things happen the way they do because they happen that way. It could have been almost anyone there, elf, human, dwarf or Qunari, male or female, mage, warrior, or rogue, it just happened to be me. But, and I know how this will sound coming from the Herald of Andraste, I still maintain that it’s not my business to tell others what to believe. I wrestled with this one, both in the moment and for a long time afterwards, but I think I’ve arrived at a conclusion: the fact that the Inquisition believes in me as their Inquisitor, not the reason why they believe in me, is what’s important. That trust and faith holds the Inquisition together. And, religious ties or not, the Inquisition is an organization dedicated to ridding the world of evils and making it a better place. So, whether I was divinely chosen or a random accident, I am the Inquisitor and will continue inquisiting until I can inquisit no more. Sorry for going all serious, but, honestly, dealing with that revelation is one of the most difficult dilemmas I’ve faced as Inquisitor. Making decisions that will shake the entire continent and define the future of several countries suddenly seem simple when you’re confronted by questions about your own worth. To make up for it, here is a picture of an eerily realistic statue of a bald man holding not-statue wine and cheese.
Because it’s funny, that’s why.
