Thoroughly caught up on sleep after felling the Fereldan Frostback, we finally made our way to the Gull and Lantern tavern in Redcliffe. Grand Enchanter Fiona, leader of the rebel mages, was indeed waiting for us, but rather confusingly claimed she hadn’t met us in Val Royeaux. At first I just thought she’d forgotten due to the amount of time that had passed, but no, who or whatever we’d met had walked and talked like a Fiona, but wasn’t Fiona, but wanted us to meet the real Fiona. Why the second Fiona went to all of that trouble instead of looking like themselves and telling us to go to Redcliffe, I have no idea. They could have just left some notes and sent us on a scavenger hunt, that plan worked for Sera and was far more entertaining for me. Well, the Fiona in the tavern told us she wanted to talk, but couldn’t because she was now in the service of a magister of Tevinter. So, without even giving me a chance to tell them how stupid it was, the rebel mages had sided with the damned Imperium. I mean, I guess I can see their point, a country most famous for blood magic, demon summoning, slavery, burning the Bride of the Maker and causing the creation of the darkspawn does seem like the type of place I’d want to hitch my wagon to without looking at other options first. The magister to whom Fiona had pledged herself was named Gereon Alexius, and since he almost immediately changed the terms of his deal with Fiona and the mages from granting citizenship to forcing servitude, I knew we were in for some stellar talks.
See? Evil, pointy hoods, just like I said.
Before Gerry and I could start negotiating about having the newly-minted Vints help the Inquisition close the Breach, his son Felix feigned a swoon and slipped me a note. A warning, actually. Since his three-pronged definitely-not-demonic-at-all hood was down, I trusted the son much more than the father. I followed the note’s instructions to head to the nearby Chantry to meet with Felix and hopefully figure out what was going on. And of course, what I actually found was even more confusing. Instead of Felix, I found a mysterious, mustachioed mage fighting off demons.
Why does almost every man I meet have enviable facial hair?
After closing the Fade rift that had opened inside the apparently soundproof Chantry, the mage introduced himself as Dorian Pavus. He said he was a Tevinter mage, but not a magister. So, not a slave-owning, demon-summoning arse. Felix did show up after a minute, and the two not-magisters explained that Gerry was a member of a group called the Venatori, effectively Tevinter supremacists, who were very interested in me. Dorian also said that Gerry, his former master, was messing with time itself for some reason. The sky was already broken, and this guy wanted to break time, as well. So, arsehole. The hood never lies. Time magic also provided another potential explanation for Fiona having no knowledge of something she had done. It was the real Fiona, but some kind of future-Fiona, meaning now-Fiona wouldn’t know what I was talking about. Or now-Val-Royeaux-Fiona had been there, returned to the Hinterlands and become future-Redcliffe-Fiona but then future-Redcliffe-Fiona had been moved backwards by time magic to before now-Val-Royeaux-Fiona had talked to me, meaning future-but-now-past-Redcliffe-Fiona would have no memory of what now-future-to-her-but-still-past-to-me-Val-Royeaux-Fiona had done and I’m getting a headache and need to move on before I drive myself insane. In the end, I actually have no idea what happened, we never totally figured it out. Yet another item to add to the list of unsolved mysteries of my inquisiting.
With the talks interrupted, we returned to Haven, and found that Gerry had sent an invitation for me to meet him in Redcliffe Castle that was absolutely a trap. Naturally, I opted to willingly walk into it. Not alone, of course, I had backup with me and more hiding in the shadows. So, when Gerry sprang his snare, it didn’t go to plan because all of his men were already dead. Dorian showed up, Gerry started rambling about an “Elder One,” and that I was a “mistake” that needed to be erased. Which was quite hurtful, to be honest. And then he used an amulet to open up a green vortex of time that sucked Dorian and me in and deposited us somewhere else. We figured out where we were quite quickly, as we were still in the castle, but not when we were. Because time magic, you see. The whole place was exceedingly depressing, even more so than castles normally are to me, and there was some kind of weird, red, lyrium everywhere. Lyrium being the crystalline substance that, once mined and refined by the dwarves, helps power mages, Templars, and magical items, and is also always blue as far as anyone knew. Even the music that constantly runs through my head was far more dour than usual. This sense of dread was further reinforced when I found Fiona, who was literally turning into red lyrium and growing into the wall of her prison cell. I know that I sound very casual in describing that, and in retrospect it was horrifying, but remember that it had already been a very strange day and understand that it was going to get much stranger. And worse.
Red lyrium is people!
