Dragon Age: Origins Playthrough - Denerim, Part Three

Amastacia awakens to find himself mostly naked in a cell in Fort Drakon. In his confusion, he instinctively looks around for how many empty flagons are on the floor and whether or not there's an angry dwarf woman in here demanding money. His memories of being gutted by some knight-lady slowly return, along with the realization that it was all the elf handmaiden's fault for insisting that they wear stupid disguises. An emaciated man in the cell next to us says Loghain's men were pretty rough when they brought us in, and we really must have pissed the Teyrn off. We tell him that it's none of his business but he keeps talking, suggesting we get comfortable because there is No Escape From Fort Drakon™. Amy says that's a tired cliché, and knows what to do next.

We shout at one of the guards, who walks over and says, "unless you're dying, I don't care."

"Relax, man," we tell him, "we just want to tell you about this great bar we found!"

Amy grabs the guard and slams his head into the cell's bars, rendering him unconscious. We take the key off his body, let ourselves out and strap his human-sized armor over our dwarven frame. Then we look at the emaciated guy and say, "see? Any time you say 'there is no escape' in a setting like this, that means someone's about to escape." To prove our point, we declare there is No Escape From Fort Drakon™ and unlock his cell. He runs off, possibly more afraid of us than the guards at this point.

"You killed a guard with a pun and escaped using a cliché? If you're not going to take this scene seriously, I'm out." 

Our gear is in a large chest, located conveniently near our cell. Feeling silly for trying to fit into the human armor, Amy strips it off and gets back into his usual plate mail. There are plenty of guards between him and the exit, but they're surprisingly ineffective against one angry, armored dwarf and his pair of longswords. As we're headed out, Morrigan and Leliana are running in. Leliana seems disappointed that they didn't get to enact their elaborate escape plan, but doesn't linger on it because she'll have plenty of opportunities to be disappointed in us in the near future.

Upon returning to Eamon's estate, the arl tells us he's relieved to see we're all right even though that's probably not true. He goes on to say that they have another idea about how to discredit Loghain, and tells us we should look into the disappearances at the elven Alienage. We're also told that Queen Anora wants to talk to us and Eamon warns that while she's a powerful ally, we shouldn't trust her completely.

Of course, Eamon's the same guy who couldn't see the brilliance of us stealing Loghain's crown, so we can't trust his opinions. We head down the hall to see Anora, who cuts right to the chase and says she wants to keep her throne. She has a list of reasons why we should listen but we assure her that we're not interested in backing our trusted ally. Anora may only be supporting us because we're convenient, but the woman knows how to make a self-serving grab for power and we respect that.

"For the record, your approval fills me with disgust. As did your question to Arl Eamon about whether or not I was still single."

For now though, Amy, Morrigan, Sten and Leliana are going to see what's up at the Alienage. This is the most run-down part of Denerim, complete with corpses that no one has disposed of and a giant tree that is just taking up space. Morrigan mocks the symbolism of the tree with us as we head to a long line of elves standing outside a hospital. A red-haired elf named Shianni is yelling at everyone that the plague is a lie and no one ever come out of that hospital. Her fellow elves mostly ignore her. Noticing us, she insists that something is up there but asks us not to do anything that will make things worse.

Amy, being Amy, muscles his way through the elves and up to the hospital's front door. A mage tells us we can't go in and we tell him we're dying... of curiosity. To see what the hospital looks like inside. The mage calls on the nearby guards to shut us up, and the elves scatter as all guards get killed in various ways.

Shianni lingers a moment to ask us what the hell we were thinking just now. Amy incredulously replies, "I fail to see how that was my fault." Shianni takes this as her cue to hide, because the dwarf is just getting warmed up.

"It's a good thing you didn't pick the City Elf origin. I'd hate to have you as my cousin."

Inside, the hospital is full of soldiers from another fiefdom called the Tevinter Imperium. Slavery is still legal in Tevinter and strangely enough, there are half a dozen elves in cages in one of the back rooms who insist they're not sick. Amy scratches his head and says he has to think a bit more about what the connection here is. For now, he tells the elves to stay in their cages. He can't fight the archdemon if he catches some kind of elf cooties.

The back door to the hospital leads through the elven slums, and the apartments are a lot more empty than they used to be. There's nothing decent to loot here though, so we proceed to a warehouse which is being guarded by more Tevinter soldiers. One asks us what we're doing here, but we stall him with a clever tactic we learned in the Penny Arcade Splinter Cell spy training manual (seriously, I think this may have been an intentional reference).

Seriously though, did you say "Tevinter Soldier"? Like that new Captain America movie? I heard that was awesome.

We eventually find ourselves confronting the mage in charge of this whole operation, who realizes it's time to close up shop. He'd like to make a little more profit before he leaves however, and offers to sell us documents implicating Loghain before he leaves. Morrigan says this had better be his opening offer. Amy agrees and tells the magister that he thinks it'd be a better deal if he gave us the documents and paid US for them. That doesn't go over well, so we insist they can leave their slaves behind too. Apparently that isn't what he wanted to hear, either. This is why Amy doesn't usually negotiate.

One beatdown later, the magister makes another offer: he can kill all the slaves and increase our own lifeforce. We tell him we have more than enough hit points to take on a dragon singlehandedly, but thanks. "I don't suppose you'd just let me go?" he asks. "No, I don't suppose I would." Amy replies.

Awkward pause.

This is probably a bad time to mention it, but you're not in a strong negotiating position when you're bleeding and on fire.

The magister makes his move and finally gets killed. The leader of the elven Alienage is freed and asks us what we intend to do with them. We tell him we don't care, and he takes that as his cue to exit.

A short while later, we return to Eamon, who says that the rest of our allies have arrived and it's time for the Landsmeet. We head toward the palace with Morrigan, Leliana and Alistair, who asks us if we still plan to support Anora for the throne. We tell him we do, and he admits to being relieved, because this means he can go back to ignoring his royal bloodline. He agrees this should make things easier at the Landsmeet, too. All Amy needs to do is be charismatic enough to sway the crowd....