Dragon Age: Origins Playthrough - Loose Ends

Amastacia is in Arl Eamon's throne room in Redcliffe with Alistair, Leliana and Morrigan as the Arl starts plotting a strategy with Bann Teagan.  Eamon has the right to call a meeting of human nobles called a Landsmeet in order to decide on who will succeed King Cailan as ruler of Ferelden.  The problem is that the strongest contender is Cailan's widow, Queen Anora, who is also Teyrn Loghain's daughter and is not likely to support the Grey Wardens.  Eamon says we need someone who is a stronger candidate than Anora... and points to Alistair.

I know I gave him King Cailan's old armor and it fits him perfectly, but so what? This game lets you equip it on Oghren, too.

It turns out that Alistair is King Maric's illegitimate son and this royal blood makes him more acceptable than Anora as Cailan's successor.  Alistair meant to tell us all of this when we went to Redcliffe, but Amy was gripped by golem fever at the time and he never got around to it after that.  Not that Amy cares one way or another... he just wants Loghain gone somehow so he can start flinging his personal army of elves, templars and golems at the darkspawn while he eats popcorn.  Eamon agrees that the army is impressive enough as it stands and we should waste no time in calling the Landsmeet.  Amy disagrees.  He has to invent popcorn before he can eat it on the battlefield, after all.

The Landsmeet in Denerim is the point of no return before the end of the game, so delaying it presents a final opportunity to wrap up side quests.  The first quest on our agenda, which has been pushed back for quite some time, is finding Sten's sword.  Its last known location was right here in Redcliffe, supposedly in the possession of a dwarf mercenary named Dwyn.  Of course, that was before the undead swarmed in... so when we head to his shack, we find it deserted and the greatsword "Asala" is sitting in a chest he left behind.  Unfortunately, it's an ordinary steel blade and by now, we've found quite a few two-handed swords and axes made from silverite and dragonbone.  Naturally, Amy throws it into Lake Calenhad and moves on.

His equipment glitters so much at this point, I can use it to see in the dark.

Stopping at camp briefly, we also talk to Morrigan who asks us if we remember the grimoire we found at the Circle Tower.  Umm... vaguely, Morrigan.  You can't reasonably expect us to remember every ancient tome we've looted in this game.  The point, according to our witch, is that this grimoire didn't have the spells she expected to find in it.  What she found instead was a detailed account of how Flemeth has kept herself young over several decades: by having daughters and transferring her soul into their bodies.  Morrigan realizes that she's the next host for Flemeth's soul and kindly asks that we kill her before she gets the chance.

Flemeth is an ancient, powerful mage who is likely more than a match for us and Morrigan says destroying her physical body probably won't kill her because she has taken precautions in that regard.  I'm smelling a lot of "maybe" coming off this plan.  Smells like victory.  We tell Alistair, Sten and Shale that we're headed back to the Kocari Wilds.

As soon as we show up at Flemeth's hut, she knows why we're here and is ready with a counter-offer.  She says what Morrigan really wants is her true grimoire with her deadliest spells, which she hands over without hesitation and tells us we can take it as a trophy.  She also promises to leave Morrigan alone... for longer than she intended to, anyway.  All we have to do is walk away and Flemeth will disappear into the Wilds.  Amy likes this plan but he tells Flemeth he's going to make one little change.  He'll take the grimoire, but he won't give it to Morrigan.  He intends to unlock the secrets himself.

"You can't win, Warden. If you strike me down, I shall become more evil-looking and SEXIER than you could possibly imagine."

Flemeth throws back her head and laughs at this idea, saying it's a great twist and she would love to see the look on Morrigan's face when we do it.  However... she's only willing to give up her grimoire for her daughter.  If we want it for ourselves, she'll have to insist that we take it from her the hard way.  At that point, she polymorphs into Andraste.

This is the second high dragon battle of the game, and it's no easier than the last one.  We have an advantage this time, however, in having four meat shields instead of two and the entire party is able to deliver sustained damage to Flemeth.  She also doesn't have as much room to maneuver as the high dragon did in the mountains, so we fight the battle on our terms: Shale, with the most health and highest defenses, takes on the head.  Sten and Alistair go to either side of Flemeth and Amy stabs the hell out of her tail.  Flemeth eventually succumbs to the assault and while we don't get a dragon horde of treasure, we do get the grimoire.

"SERIOUSLY, WARDEN?! THE TAIL?! I KNOW I'M AN EVIL WITCH AND ALL, BUT THAT'S JUST MEAN!"

Amy looks over a few pages of it before deciding it's indecipherable gibberish, so he abandons his plan and hands it over to Morrigan.  She seems happy, which is a rare occurance so we relish it while it lasts.  After she returns to her normal mood, we decide to talk to Oghren, who says that since Branka isn't interested in him any more, he'd like to look up a dwarven lass he had a fling with before she left for the surface.  We're more than happy to delay finding a successor to the throne of Ferelden to play wingman to a boorish dwarf in search of unlikely romance!  Off we go to Lake Calenhad!

Something happens along the way, though: Oghren and Amy are traveling with Leliana and Morrigan when we're ambushed by mercenaries, and not Loghain's this time.  We have no problem taking out the group and are about to deliver the death blow to the last survivor when Leliana stops us and says we should question him.  It turns out they were hired to kill her, and they were very surprised to see she was traveling with a Grey Warden.  She demands to know who hired them and where their employer is and the man has no problem giving us the name Marjorlaine and her address in Denerim.  She lets him flee, which is disappointing.  Just for that, Leliana, we're going to put your personal crisis on hold and make you watch Oghren flirt with this dwarf lady instead!

Oghren admits as we approach the tavern near the docks that he and Felsi didn't exactly part on good terms and asks us to lie about how awesome he is.  This is sounding like a better plan all the time.  We find Felsi serving drinks at "The Spoiled Princess" and Oghren immediately starts bragging about how he would have found her sooner, but he was busy killing darkspawn with the Grey Wardens.  We nod and say we saw him feed an ogre its own horns.  Felsi proves that she has a working brain and is thoroughly unimpressed by this bragging.  Oghren doesn't quit however, and continues to boast about his greatness while chiding the woman for being so cold.  Amy has no problem mirroring his clueless bravado.

"I can't decide if I should be disgusted or amazed there's another dwarf here as repulsive as you are."

Eventually Oghren decides it's time to go and Felsi says, "wait! I'm not done insulting you yet!" and suggests they continue the verbal abuse over drinks some time.  So, what looked like a horrible attempt at flirting to any sane person was actually just their version of foreplay?  Amy accidentally succeeded again!  Oghren thanks us for our help and brags again, saying she could barely keep her hands off him.  Glad we could help, Oghren.  Just don't ask us to show up at your date.

Now we finally ask Leliana what was up with her hired killers.  She tells us she was trained as a bard and a spy in Orlais by Marjorlaine until she discovered her mentor was selling secrets to their enemies.  Marjorlaine framed Leliana for the espionage, which led to her fleeing to Ferelden.  Leliana assumed that Marjorlaine was going to leave her alone now that she was in a different kingdom but obviously this is not the case.  We get another polite request to kill someone and when has Amy ever refused one of those?

So we head to Denerim without Arl Eamon and the might of our combined armies behind us, confident in the belief that everything will work out fine for the sake of the plot. We have every intention of finding Marjorlaine, but we're distracted by shiny armor at a place called Wade's Emporium. It happens. The armorsmith in question laments the fact that he doesn't make anything truly extraordinary, so we produce the remains of all the dead dragons we've been carrying around (apparently). Wade responds with girlish enthusiasm while the shopkeeper curses our name as the smith puts all other orders on hold. Wade even says he'll make the armor for free, but we know a clever lie when we hear one. Amy slaps a handful of gold coins on the counter and yells, "you're not cheating me today, SUCKER!"

"I don't... what just happened?"

"Who cares? I have pretty armor to make!"

We make a dramatic exit and walk with Leliana to Marjorlaine's hideout in Denerim. There are a couple of guards who object to us barging in... but not for long. With them dead, Leliana confronts Marjorlaine, who gives us a warm reception and says the hired killers were just her way of saying hello. Makes perfect sense to Amy; he communicates mostly by stabbing people, too. Leliana warns us that she's trying to manipulate us... this would be obvious to most, but she's traveled with us long enough to know we need these little reminders fairly often. She tells Marjorlaine in no uncertain terms that she wants her out of her life forever, then attacks. Marjorlaine had some other guards standing by in the side rooms for this reason, but they can't help her. Leliana stands over the body of her mentor and says she'll need time to process this.

After gathering up our two sets of drakeskin and one set of dragonscale armor, we head back to camp and Leliana tells us she's not sure what to think. On the one hand, she enjoyed being a deceptive killer under Marjorlaine's tutilege but she left that life behind when she joined the Chantry and had her vision. She asks us if we think she was just running away from who she really was, and Amy decides to belittle her religion and tell her she enjoys killing as much as he does. Surprisingly, she says Amy might be right about that.

...I knew we'd turn this innocent lay sister into a jaded killer if she spent enough time with us.

Of course, if you want an outfit to match her new personality, you'll need to get some DLC....

At this point, there are other quests you can do that involve your party. However, Alistair doesn't like Amy enough to trust him with information about his half-sister and Shale has been grouchy ever since we killed Caridin, so we're not doing the golem any favors, either. Zevran is indifferent to us as well, but there's no way that could possibly affect us later.