The village is a collection of small wooden cabins with nothing very remarkable except a large church. We do stop in at the store though, and the shopkeeper is relatively friendly... until we decide we want to see what the back room looks like. This NPC is only the second in the game to object to the main character barging into whatever room he pleases. Clearly, he didn't hear about what happened to the last one. We insist that the ability to root through private property unquestioned is an important trope of the RPG genre, and he attacks us for breaking his fourth wall.
Truly, this is the visage of a formidable warrior! No blade can pierce his dirt-stained tunic!
Turns out, he did have something to hide: the body of one of Arl Eamon's knights lays on the floor of the back room. We loot the body and, our work here being done, we head outside to discover that the other villagers are well-armed and have surprisingly good hearing when it comes to the dying screams of their neighbor. Weird... they seemed so nice earlier. We decorate the village with blood stains before continuing to their church.
Amy wanders in as the priest is giving a secretive-looking sermon to a circle of worshippers, and he's not happy that we're interrupting. We tell him we're just exploring the village and he tells us we should have done that without killing people along the way. That thought honestly never occurred to Amy. At this point, the priest directs the villagers to slay their new enemy. Since most of them aren't wearing armor, it's about as effective as throwing a sheep into a pit full of spikes and expecting it to hold its own.
"I'll have you know, outsider, that those sheep disarmed a poison dart trap quite handily last week!"
We pluck the priest's cool-looking amulet off his body and head into a side room where we find Brother Genitivi laying on the floor, battered but not dead. We ask if he's okay. He tells us he's been tortured for days without food or water, so he's never felt better. That's a relief. I guess he doesn't need our help. At that point, Genitivi apologizes and says he was just kidding. He's one stiff breeze away from falling over dead, but he believes the villagers are hiding the resting place of the Urn of Sacred Ashes and a little broken leg won't stop him from getting there.
We head into the mountains and find a door with a complex lock. After Genitivi messes with the priest's amulet a little, it changes shape and fits perfectly into the keyhole. By now he's pretty tired, and says he'll study the carvings in this entrance hall while we explore the ruin. He says it doesn't look like there are cultists here, but what he really meant to say was, "there are TOTALLY cultists about a hundred feet away." This seems like an awfully high cultist population for such a small village, but Amy stabs first and asks questions never.
The ruins' walls are riddled with holes that lead to winding underground passages, because we didn't get enough of that scenery in Orzammar. Here we discover what the cultists have repurposed the ruin for: a dragon breeding ground. There are eggs in clutches in caves, eggs being studied by mages on altars, but no omelettes or even scrambled eggs. Seems like a waste to Amy. After carving through cultists and young dragons alike, we arrive at the final room before the exit, where their leader, Kolgrim, is waiting.
"Yes, I want to parley after you killed all my disciples! It worked for the werewolves, didn't it?"
He warns us, with suppressed crazy, that we have spilled enough blood for today. We apologize for that, insisting again that we were simply "exploring". He goes on to say that Andraste will smell the blood of her children on us and will be displeased. Huh. That's confusing. Well, thank you nice cult leader! We'll keep that in mind! We're off to explore some more now. Buh-bye!
Before we can politely excuse ourselves, he orders his cultists to attack. Apparently he was threatening us, not giving us helpful advice on how to avoid being slaughtered by a dragon. Amy always gets those two things mixed up. Regardless, the cult leader has a shiny axe that we take off his body and hand to Oghren because we think the cult leader would want it to be wielded by another crazy person.
Upon heading out the exit and onto a mountain pass... we see Andraste.
I wasn't expecting Andraste to be... so purple.
Well, the cultists thought this was Andraste and Amy thinks now is a good time to respect the beliefs of the people he just killed. As we head down the path, a random party member will remind you that dragons are death incarnate but Amy's already made up his mind. The cultists probably expect to meet their god in the afterlife and they can't very well do that if it's alive. Dragandraste must be slain to honor those poor cultists' memories.
This fight makes the Broodmother look like a helpless octopus in comparison. If you take the dragon head-on, it will apply fire directly to your forehead and then bite you. If you try attacking its rear, expect a tail slap or a kick from a hind leg. If you surround it, it will fly straight up and land in a more advantageous position. Mages and rogues are especially vulnerable to its high damage attacks and sure enough, Morrigan gets knocked unconscious before a third of its hitpoints are gone. Oghren and Amy keep it distracted well enough to allow Leliana to retreat, but they're drinking healing potions like they're chocolate-flavored stout. At one point, the dragon picks up Amy in its jaws and swings him around like a toy. He survives with a sliver of life thanks to the fact that he tastes pretty awful.
"I'M BREATHING FIRE BUT I CAN STILL TASTE THE DWARF-SWEAT! I ACTUALLY WANT YOU TO KILL ME NOW!"
An ordinary human would probably be vomiting for hours after drinking as many healing potions as Oghren and Amy did, but luckily they're two dwarves who have spent their lives making bad decisions about what they drink. They're able to bring the High Dragon down and unlike the little dragon we fought in the Brecilian Forest, this one has a proper treasure horde. We'll be able to buy Morrigan some new internal organs with the gold we'll get from selling this stuff, but for now we're off to the underground shrine on the other side of this mountain pass.
Once there, we are greeted by a pale figure in bright silver armor, who is here on loan from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He is the guardian of the Urn of Sacred Ashes and he will judge whether or not we are worthy to take a pinch of ashes. To judge our character, the Guardian asks Amy if he should have done more for his family before leaving Orzammar. Amy just laughs and says they'd be miserable with or without him. The Guardian seems satisfied with that, proving he's not very good at his job. He then turns to our companions: he accuses Leliana of lying about speaking to the Maker, Oghren tells him his life story, and Morrigan is having none of his crap. His methods don't seem very consistent, but he lets us pass for whatever reason.
"'You have chosen... wisely.' There, I said it. Will you shut up now?"
The rest of this temple is no less confusing for Amy, who never really understood the Chantry's teachings before he came here. He definitely doesn't get the point of the next room, where Andraste will sic an Ash Wraith on you if you can't answer a riddle about her life. It just seems excessive... furthermore, wasn't Andraste that dragon we just killed? Head hurts so much. Leliana, you're the Andraste fangirl, why can't you just take over?
The other rooms include a bridge puzzle where you're supposed to "put your faith in your friends" but really involves random button pressing. You also have to fight a shadowy version of your own party. Morrigan kills shadow Amy almost immediately, which must have been very cathartic for her. There's also a hallway where you encounter a vision of someone from your past... in Amy's case, it's Leske. He acts like our friend once again, at which point we mention that he totally betrayed us and we killed him.
CALL ME "SALROKA" ONE MORE TIME! I DARE YOU!
"Yeah, I know," Leske replies, "but you were supposed to play this part of the game a lot sooner than now."Fair point, Leske. He gives us a trinket and we proceed to the final room, where we have to strip naked and walk through fire. After that, the Guardian re-appears and proclaims us worthy. Damn, man. If getting naked and running through flames was what made you worthy of the sacred ashes, you should know we passed that particular test after a really drunken stupor back in Dust Town a few years back.
So, with Leliana in awe and Morrigan dripping with sarcasm, we take a pinch of ashes and head back to Genitivi. Upon seeing that we reached the ashes, he says that we need to let the world know about this place so any pilgrim can come here. Amy disagrees, saying we should keep it for ourselves and threatens that Genitivi should keep his mouth shut. He replies he would give his life to tell the world about this discovery. We briefly consider stabbing him but Amy ultimately decides that this death threat was another one of his hilarious jokes.
HA HA HA! He would ridiculous with a knife sticking out of his head!
...Come on guys, I'm not the only one who was thinking that, right?
...Come on guys, I'm not the only one who was thinking that, right?
At long last, we return to Redcliffe Castle and a healer performs a ritual with the ashes over Arl Eamon's body. He awakens, and is dismayed when Bann Teagan tells him he's been asleep for almost the entire game now. Teagan gets him caught up on all the boring details: demonically possessed son, village slaughtered by undead, blood magic, dead wife, etc. For some reason, Arl Eamon thinks we're worthy of the title "Champion of Redcliffe" anyway. Shortly thereafter, he brings us to his throne room and lays out his plan for how we're going to deal with Teyrn Loghain....
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