After clearing out the Hissing Wastes, there were only a few minor details to clear up before confronting Corypheus in the Arbor Wilds. The most significant of these was using the accumulated shard RaMOs to finally open the sealed doors in the Forbidden Oasis. Inside, there were undead to kill, magic tombs to open that increased my resistances to cold, fire, and lightning, and a GAHLLTIST. Useful, but kind of disappointing after all that collecting. I mean, it wasn’t even a special GAHLLTIST with a name or anything, just a run of the mill GAHLLTIST. Anyways, getting back to the plot, the Inquisition was ready to march to the Arbor Wilds and stop Cory from plundering the elven ruins there. Truth be told, I had kind of forgotten what he wanted, but the fact that he wanted something was more than enough for me to want to stop him getting what he wanted. Then, Morrigan reminded me that he was probably after an eluvian that would allow him to physically enter the Fade and either claim godhood or accidentally destroy the world, and I really wanted to stop him. We knew this fight was going to be a big one, so we marshalled our allies and marched.
A beautiful place for a battle.
According to Morrigan, who tagged along with me and my companions, Cory’s target was the Temple of Mythal. Mythal is one of the principal gods in the elven pantheon, so a temple devoted to just her, where she might have actually physically been at some point, would be very important. As we rushed to beat Cory there, we hacked through his Red Templars and the few Grey Wardens he still had under his control. That was normal. What wasn’t normal was that we were also attacked by elves. Not Dalish elves, but some group of my people that I’d never encountered before. After battering through the barricades Cory’s army had set up, we met the self-proclaimed god himself at the entrance to the temple, being delayed by more of the strange elves. He talked about something called the Well of Sorrows, a not-eluvian artifact that was a mystery to us. And then we watched Cory get incinerated. Job done, time to go home, right? Unfortunately not. Soon after, the corpse of one of his enthralled Wardens began spewing up its blighted blood, melted, and Cory re-formed himself out of the ooze. Our natural reaction to this horrific scene was to run really quickly in the opposite direction. We barely made it into the temple, sealing the magic doors behind us to buy time, before he and his pet dragon caught up.
What is dead may never die, apparently.
So, we had solved one mystery. Corypheus had survived being “killed” outside the Temple of Mythal, and earlier by Hawke and her friends, by jumping to a new body that had been infected by the taint. There had to be a way to make him more than mostly dead, but we would have to solve that particular puzzle later. Samson and some of his men had made it into the temple ahead of us, which was the more immediate concern. To proceed, they bypassed the safeguards and simply blew a hole in the floor. I decided that we should follow decorum and proceed as the ancient elves had intended. Apparently the ancient elves were a little weird, because the way to move forward was to solve floor-tile puzzles where you had to walk an entire path without stepping on the same tile twice. Did I say “a little weird?” Scratch that, totally weird. We did it, though, and moved on to the heart of the temple, where we met Abelas, leader of the elves we’d fought in the Wilds. They were a sect of Sentinels, set to safeguard the Temple of Mythal from invaders. They had been there for hundreds of years, since before the elven empire fell, magically hibernating until new enemies trespassed on sacred ground. Abe casually mentioned the history-shattering revelation that the elves had effectively destroyed their own empire through infighting, rather than the generally accepted version where Tevinter destroyed it from the outside. My mind had already been blown, and we hadn’t even gotten to the truly crazy portion of the day yet. Since we had taken the time to complete the entry rituals of the temple, Abe recognized our good intentions and offered to ally with us to repel Cory and the Reds, an offer I readily accepted. No sense in needlessly shedding anyone’s blood, let alone ancient elves just doing their jobs. Unfortunately, Abe also mentioned that he would destroy the Well of Sorrows if he needed to, which Morrigan did not take well. She transformed into a bird and flew after Abe, leaving the rest of us to be escorted through the temple by the Sentinels.
Sera finally has someone else with a tree tattooed on their face to make fun of.
There’s a lot to unpack in the aftermath of that particular decision. A Sentinel guide opened hidden doors that let us skirt the main path through the temple, where her fellow guardians were attempting to hold off the Red Templars. I could have wandered through the remarkably intact piece of my history for ages, but our guide insisted we press on quickly, despite the fact that she was walking very slowly. Probably had something to do with the comically large book she was carrying. Eventually, we reached the chamber of the Well of Sorrows and discovered Samson and several of his minions. Cory’s general proceeded to brag about how his master had given him the task of attaining what was in the well, which turned out to be knowledge. After listening to his delusions for a while, I told him he was crazy to think Cory would keep him around after getting that knowledge, used Dagna’s rune to blast the enchanted armor right off his body, then beat him into submission and had him dragged back to Skyhold for judgment.
Why are bad guys so prone to monologuing?
After that, the path to the well was clear. We caught up to Morrigan, who had caught up to Abe, and the Sentinel leader explained what the well actually was. It was the collected knowledge of every high priest of Mythal through the ages. Accessing the knowledge would feed it into a new host, but destroy the well itself in the process. Abe also let slip the mythology-shattering revelation that Mythal had been murdered to death and was as gone as a god can be. Dalish legend stated that Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf, had tricked Mythal, and the rest of the elven pantheon, into going into the Beyond, or the Fade as we now know it, never to return. Apparently, Mythal had been killed far more mundanely and Fen’Harel had nothing to do with it. For the second time in about twenty minutes, Abe had casually torn apart a key bit of the modern elf’s fundamental understanding of the world. And the insanity was just beginning. Abe further explained that the well would not just impart its knowledge to the user, it would force them to be bound to Mythal’s will. Forever. Which, if you believed his implied assertion that Mythal wasn’t truly dead or banished to another plane of existence, was problematic. Morrigan did not believe him and scoffed at the idea. Eventually, Abe acquiesced and told us that he would not try and stop us from using the well, and left to lead his remaining Sentinels to a new home, as their duty to protect the temple was moments from being meaningless. That left me to decide who was going to use the Well of Sorrows, which was more of a fancy wading pool than a well, really, since we did need its knowledge to help stop Cory. To be honest, and despite having a symbol of Mythal tattooed on my face, I didn’t like the sound of being bound to anything. I have always rather enjoyed forging my own path. Plus, Morg would have whined incessantly if I had done it, so I let her take the plunge.
I admit, I was tempted to hop in just to wash the blood off of my armor.
Morrigan stepped into the well, absorbed the knowledge contained within, and emerged hearing voices in her head, but physically unscathed. That would not have remained the case for much longer, however, as Corypheus finally made his appearance at that precise point. He quickly figured out what had happened and literally flew towards us in a rage. So, we hoofed it through an eluvian that could only be opened by the imbiber of the well and shut the door in his face. Back at Skyhold, Morg let us know that the well had indeed given her the knowledge we needed to defeat Cory for good. His dragon contained a piece of him which, if destroyed, would disrupt his body-jumping ability for a time. The good news was that the bulk of Cory’s army had been smashed in the Arbor Wilds and the Magister himself had fled, along with his dragon. So, all we had to do was track down and kill an immensely powerful aspiring god and his heretofore nigh-unstoppable flying death machine. How hard could that be?
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