Amastacia heads to Redcliffe and informs Arl Eamon he's finished screwing around-- for now. We cut to a scene of armies of humans flooding into Denerim for the Landsmeet as we arrive with Eamon and Alistair... and we're greeted by Loghain himself.
"Now entering the arena, being accompanied by his manager, Rendon Howe...."
The Teyrn chastises Eamon for calling all the nobles away from their lands when many of them are being invaded by darkspawn. A fair point, but Eamon counters with the fact that Loghain tried to kill him with poison. Amy says they both talk too much, and he'd like to go see Wade the armorsmith again. We just thought of some other weird critters we killed that he could make a nice hat out of!
Loghain storms off with an air of false indignation and Eamon shows us to his Denerim estate, which will serve as our new camp for the rest of the game. Like our camp, all our party members are hanging out in random locations and can be chatted with if we so desire. Oghren is in the dining room, eating anything that resembles food, Leliana is in the library and Morrigan is apparently sharing a room with Polystyrene the war hound. Meanwhile, Arl Eamon, Bann Teagan and Alistair are all hanging out in a large study upstairs, waiting for us to advance the plot.
Whoa. Alistair looks way more elven and feminine than I remember.
Arl Eamon insists, however, that having the Queen on our side would greatly strengthen our cause. Alistair is all for it too, because he still doesn't want to be king and is more than happy to let Anora keep the throne as long as she's not interested in killing all Grey Wardens. This is why Amy never liked Alistair much... he never goes along with our short-sighted attempts to grab power. Well, screw both of you guys! We developed a foolproof plan of our own!
We take Leliana, Morrigan and Oghren with us to meet a contact we made during our first trip to Denerim: Slim Couldry. He's been talking about the perfect thieving opportunity for a while and the chance to strike has finally arrived. One of Loghain's couriers has something that will swing the balance of power in our favor and word on the street is, he just stopped into the Gnawed Noble Tavern. We pay Slim a generous finder's fee and then pay the tavern a visit.
Judging by that beer gut, I'd say this guy spends a lot of time keeping his eye on tavern patrons.
As promised, Loghain's man is in a side room surrounded by a small group of soldiers. We don't steal the item so much as we're immediately recognized as a Grey Warden and attacked. Not that the details matter to Amy. We take our prize off the courier's body and triumphantly return to Arl Eamon with the good news: he can rest easy, for we have just stolen... Loghain's crown!
...And then stupid Arl Eamon and stupid Alistair say they still think we should rescue the queen.
FINE. We keep our current party and head to Arl Howe's estate with Anora's handmaiden but yet again, we're stopped on the way there. This time, it's a group of thugs with very familiar Antivan accents. Their leader, Taliesen, asks why Zevran isn't with us. The answer is because we don't remember having anyone in our group by that-- oh! You mean the blonde elf who just walked up behind us so conveniently? What about him?
Taliesen tells Zevran that the Antivan Crows don't need to know about his previous failure and if he kills us now, he can go back to his old life. We've done this scene before, though. Assassins attack, we assassinate them first, and lecture their corpses about the folly of hubris. Zevran has been on the receiving end of that too, so there's no way he's going to-- uh, Zev? Why are you pointing that thing at us?
That's the face of a man who's about to make a "that's what she said" joke. KILL HIM NOW.
The elf has gotten tired of us telling him he's not as good of a rogue as Leliana and his accent isn't as sexy. So, he decided to see if the second assassination attempt is a charm. Leliana brings him down with a hail of arrows while Oghren and Amy take care of Taliesen and his hired muscle, which only serves to prove our point. This time, Zevran doesn't get back up. We take back the gear we equipped on him, say a few words about hubris and move on.
Upon arriving at Arl Howe's estate, our handmaiden turned spy tells us she has an elaborate plan to get us to the back entrance undetected. Amy, still trying to clean bits of Zevran off his sword, isn't listening and strolls into the gardens. Guards immediately come to investigate and Amy is forced to bloody the blade he just finished cleaning. The pushy elven lady tries to get us back on track, saying she'll distract the guards while we hide. That's not Amy's style. Sounding more annoyed than shocked as she stands over the dead bodies of the guards, the handmaiden demands that we put on the disguises that she worked so hard to find for us and sneak in.
This is exactly why Amy didn't want to go on this mission. He knew it was just going to be a big hassle. We finally try things the elf's way and stroll through Arl Howe's estate dressed like mercenaries. No one pays any attention to us, which seems odd considering how distinctive Amy's face is, but we don't question it and head for Anora's room. Unfortunately, the door is glowing in an unfriendly way and Anora tells us that a spell has been cast on it, so we need to find the mage responsible for it to get her out.
"Hey, uh... do you think that hideous dwarf talking to the queen's door might be--"
"SHUT UP AND GO BACK TO LOOKING STOIC."
"SHUT UP AND GO BACK TO LOOKING STOIC."
So after all that subterfuge, we have to head down into Arl Howe's secret dungeons and are immediately recognized as fake mercenaries because no one goes down into the secret dungeons without knowing the secret handshake. The handmaiden is dumb, that's all I'm trying to say. Regardless, we decide that we might as well free some other prisoners to distract the guards while we're breaking out Anora. One says his father is a bann, which doesn't seem important. Another is spouting crazy talk, so we stab him. The most interesting one, however, reaches through the bars and strangles his guard as soon as we distract him. He walks out of his cell shortly thereafter, wearing the guard's armor and thanking us because he's waited for weeks to do that.
Our new friend introduces himself as Riordan, one of the Orlesian Grey Wardens who was sent here to see if the Ferelden Grey Wardens needed help. He ran into Loghain first though, and was tossed in the dungeons to keep us from getting reinforcements. He also mentions that there are supplies stashed here in Denerim that he can help us get access to but for now, he's going to show himself out. We ask him if he's sure he doesn't want to kill Arl Howe for us, but he makes some weak excuses about starvation and torture. More like Grey Whiner, am I right?
Brother Genitivi walked into a Dragon Cult headquarters with a broken leg and I didn't hear him whinge about it.
With him gone, we head into the deepest part of the dungeon to kill Arl Howe. There's a powerful mage with him, more than likely the one who's keeping Anora magically locked up. Howe tells us that we should have run while we had the chance, but we're too mesmerized by his silky voice to be intimidated. We snap out of it when he attacks though, and Amy charges at the mage to ensure the nasty spells are kept to a minimum. Howe is a capable rogue, but he can't defend himself against Leliana, Morrigan and Oghren when he's busy trying to backstab Amy. The group is defeated and Howe chokes out a last, defiant statement before dying.
Hoping we murdered the right mage, we run back upstairs to Anora's room to find that the elven handmaiden has dressed the queen up as a guard to sneak her out of the estate. ...Really, lady? You think anyone's going to be fooled by that? What is your obsession with making people dress up in outrageous costumes?
"Yes, your majesty! That looks divine! Now I have this nug costume for you to try on...."
Anora tells us to shut up and head for the exit and we do, but we find one of Loghain's best warriors, a woman named Ser Cauthrien, blocking the doors with a small army. She says we're under arrest for the murder of Arl Howe. We're actually kind of impressed that word of our accomplishment spread that fast. Unfortunately for her, we came here to rescue queens and kill guards... and the queen just ran away.
So far, we've fought a high dragon and Flemeth the Shapeshifter, and we still have the archdemon ahead of us. This, however, is the most difficult fight in the game. In addition to Ser Cauthrien being a strong warrior with a massive health bar, she's surrounded by about 15 competent guards, several of which can stun you and leave you unable to drink health potions. I've defeated this large group before with a character who saved Wynne at the Circle Tower, but without a healer behind us, we basically have no chance of victory.
This woman is about to get thank you notes from SO many dwarves in Orzammar who were waiting for Amy to get knocked down a peg.
All four party members get dropped and we cut to a scene of Anora returning to Arl Eamon with Morrigan, Leliana and Oghren behind her. She tells Eamon that Amy has been captured and taken to Fort Drakon. Then she suggests that they come up with a plan to rescue him. Arl Eamon pauses uncomfortably.
"Well?" Anora says.
"Hold on," Eamon replies, "I still haven't decided if we should."
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