Dragon Age II Playthrough - Up High, Down Low, Too... Dark?

One year later, Chickene is wearing mage garb with Red Iron colors, but somehow hasn't gained any experience points. I didn't realize we owed those to Meeran, too. Regardless, word has reached Kirkwall of Amastacia's improbable victory over the Archdemon, so a dwarf named Bartrand Tethras is planning an expedition to loot the Deep Roads now that the horde has been temporarily thinned out. Our scene opens with the Hawke brothers pestering Bartrand about joining up with that. The dwarf can tell they're just looking for a meal ticket though, and tells them to sod off.

An expedition to the Deep Roads has a high risk of death, even in ideal circumstances.
You know times are tough when you're fighting for a chance at an early grave.

Carver tries to get Chickene to be more persuasive but he responds with the "I'm the older brother so I'M in charge!" routine. Bartrand has definitely heard enough after that. Chickene is more apologetic afterwards, as they contemplate their options now that their contact with the Red Iron is at an end. They're interrupted by a pickpocket stealing Chickene's coinpurse, though.

Just as suddenly as the theft happens, a familiar-looking dwarf shoots the thief with an elaborate crossbow as he's escaping, pinning him to a wall. Our narrator picked a great time to join the actual game, kindly suggesting that the thief find a new career as he takes the purse back, pulls the bolt out and gives him a parting left hook. Tossing the coins back to Chickene, he introduces himself as Varric Tethras and says his brother Bartrand spoke too soon. He tells us what the expedition really needs is a partner to finance it.

"Elaborate crossbow" basically means "shotgun" judging by the looks of this thing.

Annoyed, we point out that if we could afford that, we wouldn't be begging for a job as his caravan guards. Varric's heard of what we did for the Red Iron though, and is confident that between his connections and our capabilities, we can raise enough coin. Then, as Bartrand's partners, we'll see a larger return on our investment. We make a deal and Varric joins our party along with his crossbow "Bianca". Carver mentions that Aveline joined the city guard and we should check with her about bounties, too. So, we make the Viscount's Keep our first destination.

Kirkwall, like Denerim in Origins, is a large city with several districts that can be traveled to via the map screen. Hightown is where the all the estates and wealthy merchants can be found. The Hawke family, however, live in the poorer section called Lowtown. There's also an undercity called Darktown where the criminal element likes to hang out. The Viscount's Keep is, of course, located at the far end of Hightown and has its own icon on the map.

Not shown: Middletown, Dimtown, Slightly Curved Town and Unremarkabletown.

Aveline is hanging out in the guard barracks in the basement of the keep. She barely notices when we greet her, as she's preoccupied with a wooden beam that has a bunch of notes attached to it. Apparently, she takes this whole 'stick to your post' thing quite literally. She eventually snaps out of duty mode and tells us that she might have a job for us. There are caravans being robbed without any discernable pattern and no one's really looking into it. She has an idea of what the next target is and wants us to help set up an ambush... and yes, we'll be paid, since it's an accepted practice for the city guard to hire freelancers.

Aveline joins Chickene, Carver and Varric to form the always popular 4 member party. Before we head out though, we decide to see what Gamlen's house in Lowtown looks like. It's about as unimpressive as you'd expect. It's two and a half dingy rooms that are nowhere near big enough for four adults and our loyal mabari warhound... that we've never seen until just now. The dog isn't a full party member this time around, but you can summon him in battle and give him a name. Since the house resembles a junk pile and that reminds me of Katamari Damacy, I decide to call him "King Cosmos".

"Don’t presume to take the escalator up to the throne just because you’re the protagonist. Woo, tangent."

We also take the time while we're here to badger Gamlen again about what exactly happened to the estate. Leandra asks specifically about her father's will and Gamlen says it was read, nothing was in it, so it went into a vault. Chickene angrily tells him that's he's obviously hiding something, then gently suggests that if nothing's in it, there's no harm in getting it out of the vault. Gamlen deflects us again by saying the new owners have the place locked up tight. It turns out Carver learned something about that... the new owners are slavers and they use the estate to house their slaves. Despite Carver's indifference, Chickene resolves to break in, kill the slavers and find the will.

We head to Darktown and find a ladder among the walls that make up the city's gritty underbelly. Carver is strangely impressed by it. Getting in from here is no problem since Leandra still had her old set of keys and the slavers apparently never changed the locks. Upon entering the basement, it's not long before we run into several henchmen who aren't happy to see us. We don't see any slaves though, which makes us question Carver's story. Not that it really matters, because it's been far too long since we killed something. The leader confronts us as we near the vault, immediately suspecting that Gamlen is involved and throwing everything he has at us as a result. Aveline and Carver prove to be just as effective at killing "slavers" as they are at killing darkspawn, and Varric shows off some impressive ranged support, sending a hail of crossbow bolts through the air in a high arc... despite the fact that this room only has a 10 foot celing at best. Like I said: impressive.

The vault is small, but it has a few nice pieces of equipment, a stash of coins and the will we were looking for. We head straight back to Gamlen's house from there and find him in the middle of lecturing his sister about how hard we've made things for him. He asks her to pay rent, but changes his tone when we show up. Chickene harshly accuses him of lying to us as we hand Leandra the will and she sees that her father left everything to her and her kids. The lie exposed, Gamlen says he wasn't going to wait around forever for his sister to claim the estate and wasn't even expecting her to return. Chickene concedes that he has a point. With a new feeling of determination, our mother says she'll do what she must to get an audience with the viscount and reclaim our right to the estate and our associated title. When will this happen? "After Bartrand's expedition." ...How convenient for the plot.

"Does, uh... this mean I'm not getting rent money for my poker game? Guys?"

With that on the back burner for now, we head to a shabby Lowtown tavern called the Hanged Man with Varric to discuss his ideas for making money. He tells us that actually, the first thing we need is a way into the Deep Roads. Chickene is annoyed, having assumed Bartrand already figured that out. Varric explains that he wants the safest way into the Deep Roads and he's heard of a former Grey Warden who has detailed maps created by the order. Chickene admits it's a good idea, so Varric tells us he's a healer that has been working with Fereldan refugees who frequent a particular shop. We then get it in our heads that Grey Wardens are secretive and we may have to beat the info out of him. Varric is less than impressed.

A long line of refugees greets us as we head to Lirene's Fereldan Imports. Many of them are complaining about various health ailments and Lirene keeps telling them to stay in line and wait their turn. We're a video game protagonist though, so we walk straight up to her and tell her we're looking for a Grey Warden. She's never heard of one, but one of the refugees in line blurts out that the healer used to be one. We calmly tell her we just want to talk to him. Lirene is hesitant though, since he's an apostate mage and she has no desire to see him get reported to the Templars. His patience already exhausted, Chickene says he's going to start punching people. Lirene reminds him that she's been through the Blight and isn't impressed by his threats. She tells us where to seek him out regardless and we leave, angrily throwing a gold coin in her donation box on our way out.

"I don't want to see you in here aga-- wait, you donated a gold sovereign? Are you friends with that dwarf Warden?"

As we exit, we learn that word travels quickly around here and a group of Fereldan refugees are already waiting to rough us up because we might endanger the healer. Chickene doesn't want to deal with people right now, and this is one of those dialogue scenes where you can have a companion answer for you. So, we tell Carver to handle it and he tells the assembled rabble to stop picking on their fellow Fereldans. Amazingly, the leader of the group apologizes, hails Queen Anora and walks away. It seems that once again, I've created a main character who is at his best when he shuts up and lets other people speak for him.

For now, it's back to Darktown to find the healer's clinic. We walk in to see a mage using a great deal of energy to heal a child, and the process leaves him fatigued. If we had played Dragon Age: Origins: Awakening, we'd recognize him as Anders, one of the companions from that expansion. We didn't bother though, so he's not happy with us when we walk in. We assure him it was nothing personal and we totally had a save file that had completed Awakening before our Xbox 360 hard drive failed. He calms down and says he wants nothing to do with the Grey Wardens or the Deep Roads, but he'll help us if we help him. Apparently, a mage friend of his named Karl is trying to escape the Templars and Anders has made the appropriate arrangements. He wants us to accompany him to the Chantry at night just in case there's trouble. Chickene is no friend to the Templars himself, so he accepts.

"A 'red ring of death' you say? My sympathies, friend. There is no healing for that ailment."

Another feature of the map I should mention at this point is that you can switch from day to night simply by pressing a button while on the map screen. Certain missions can only be undertaken during a certain time of day, and you will also run into more roving groups of bandits at night than you will during the daylight hours. While other games make use of an in-game clock or even adjust to the real-world time of day, this feature is much more convenient, although it does raise the question of how it affects the other residents of Kirkwall when you rapidly switch between "day" and "night" mode just for the hell of it.

Regardless, we head into Hightown at night and fight our way through a group of thugs pretending to be guardsmen on our way to the Chantry. Anders tells us to let him do the talking and keep an eye out for templars while he finds Karl. His mage friend is waiting in one of the wings of the Chantry, but he speaks to us mechanically and has a weird new tattoo on his forehead. These are signs that a mage has been made "Tranquil," a process that cuts of a person's ability to channel magic by removing all emotions or desires. Tranquilized mages are also very compliant, as demonstrated when Karl calmly summons the Templars who were waiting to ambush us.

I've seen Bill Bixby do this before. He's going to turn into an icy blue-colored Lou Ferrigno!

Anders doesn't take this well. By that, I mean his entire body glows blue, his voice changes to something deep and growly, and he starts blasting templars with powerful spells. With five of us fighting, the mage-hunting knights don't last long. Karl speaks again once the fight is over, saying that Anders must have brought a piece of the Fade into the room because he has temporarily regained his emotions. Chickene accuses him of faking his tranquility. Karl insists that his feelings are already going away again however, and begs for death. Chickene's concerned now, telling Anders there must be some way to cure him and we shouldn't resort to murder. Anders knows that this change is permanent though, and grants his friend mercy.

Back at Anders' clinic, Chickene asks for an explanation and Anders tells us that he met a spirit of justice (who was another companion in Dragon Age: Origins: Awakening) that needed a human host to live outside of the Fade. So, he offered to be that host but his anger toward Templars caused the spirit to change. Chickene immediately assumes demon and Carver chimes in, calling him an abomination. Anders says he's still a spirit, just one of vengeance instead of justice now, and it's his burden to try and control the spirit. Chickene says he wishes he could help, which makes him feel better. Anders offers us the Grey Warden maps and his assistance freely after that.

"I'll be in my filthy undercity clinic in case you feel like hanging out somewhere more sanitary than Gamlen's house."

So, we're one step closer to punching our ticket to the Deep Roads! We're still light on gold but we have a way in now. Chickene can't escape this nagging feeling, though... this notion that there's something he's forgotten... maybe something a very powerful witch told him to do....

Dragon Age II Playthrough - Fear and Lothering

The game begins, oddly enough, with a dwarf being dragged down a hallway by two well-armored men before being rudely deposited in a chair.  A woman in armor emerges from the shadows, who tells the dwarf she is Cassandra Pentaghast, Seeker of the Chantry.  She's brought him here to tell her everything he knows about "the Champion," a man who apparently set off a series of events that has caused big problems for the Chantry.  Once the dwarf realizes she's not taking 'no' for an answer, he begins to talk....

Watch yourself, dwarf. This inquisitor looks like she's going to throw the book at you.

We switch to Hawke (looking like Gerard Butler for the time being) fighting alongside a man with a greatsword.  Hawke has some serious magic in the form of fireballs, walls of icicles and mind blasts.  He and his companion are tearing apart waves of darkspawn and while the warrior seems worried, Hawke continues slinging spells and says he's ready to kill as many as he needs to.  Eventually an ogre shows up, but Mr. Mighty Mage is no less determined.  After a short battle, Hawke charges the ogre's body with magical energy and literally rips it apart.  More darkspawn show up to surround the two humans and just when it looks like the scene can't get any worse, the camera pans over to show a High Dragon atop a nearby cliff.  It plunges downward breathing fire and--That's about the time Cassandra tells the dwarf he's full of it.  He implies that he was just telling her what she wanted to hear, and she sternly tells him that she wants the truth.  The dwarf resists the urge to repeat Jack Nicholson's line from A Few Good Men and retcons the beginning of the game.  Gerard Butler is fired from playing the lead role and we create our balding mage named Chickene Hawke instead.

"It's called 'creative license', Seeker. How was I supposed to know the Chantry didn't have room in the budget for an A-list actor?"

Chickene, as it turns out, is not a mighty wizard at this point.  He and his family are among the citizens of Lothering who didn't get out of town fast enough when the darkspawn showed up and now they're literally running for their lives.  In addition to Chickene, we're traveling with his brother Carver, his sister Bethany and their mother Leandra.  They stop briefly after killing some stray darkspawn to try to figure out what to do.  Chickene yells at everyone to point out that we're wasting time, then tactfully suggests that we should decide on a course of action quickly.  Leandra says that her family in Kirkwall does pretty well for themselves, and would be the best option if we can just make our way to the nearby port of Gwaren.  For now though, the group decides that "away from the darkspawn" is as good a direction to travel as any.

Moving further along, the Hawke family finds more darkspawn and a married couple fighting them. The husband is wearing Templar armor but it does little good against a sword strike that nearly cuts his arm off. Fortunately, the wife has plenty of fight in her. She tackles the darkspawn that wounded him to the ground, beats it to death, then prepares to defend herself with her sword and her husband's shield. I'm honestly not sure why he didn't just let her do all the fighting to begin with. At any rate, we catch up to the action and make short work of the blighters together.

"Oh. 'Blighters'. Yeah, we see what you did there. We just wish we hadn't."

The templar isn't exactly grateful, since Chickene and Bethany are slinging spells without a license and he's supposed to kill such "apostates". His wife talks him down, introducing herself as Aveline and her husband as Wesley. Chickene just growls at the Templar. Everyone agrees to not kill each other for the time being though, so Chickene offers to treat Wesley's wound. The templar refuses, writing off his sword arm as useless without even trying our healing magic. Aveline tells us the way north is blocked by darkspawn but south takes us straight into the Kocari Wilds. Chickene gets angry again and says wilds are better than certain death any day.

We continue forward, stopping only to kill darkspawn now and then, until we come over a familiar-looking rise and see an equally familiar-looking ogre. It turns its gaze on Bethany and Leandra. Our mage sister charges up her spells to defend our mother, but the ogre responds by grabbing Bethany and slamming her into the ground a few times. Sadly, this is not just a misunderstood ogre handshake. Chickene, Carver and Aveline move in and kill the ogre but it's too late for Bethany. Chickene shouts at his traumatized mother to get moving before something uglier shows up, but she shouts right back. I guess we see where Chickene gets it from.

"oGre onLY waNt giVe fRienDLy hUG. whY huMAn mAge so sQUisHy?" 

Wesley says a prayer, Chickene acts nicer and Leandra reluctantly gets up... but sure enough, the darkspawn have caught up to us by then. They start to overwhelm us, but the Plot Device Dragon appears on time again and roasts every darkspawn in sight with its fire breath. It lands, clutching a dead darkspawn in its talons, and a swirling magical field surrounds it. The dragon changes its shape to reveal Flemeth, sporting a sexy evil outfit that was at the dry cleaners during Origins, I guess.Chickene immediately decides to threaten this powerful woman, which Flemeth scoffs at. She says she was just curious to see who killed the ogre and she'll be on her way now. Chickene goes back to nice mode and admits they'll die without her help. She doesn't seem to care until we tell her we're headed for Kirkwall. Changing her tone, Flemeth says she'll get us to Gwaren if we make a simple delivery once we reach the Free Marches. Chickene rudely tells her he'll makes no such guarantee. Flemeth ignores his bravado again since the others seem agreeable. She says there's one matter to attend to before we go, however.

"You may have noticed my dragon horns also look different from how they did in Origins.
In which case: shut up. They were at the dry cleaners' too."

Wesley has been looking more sickly as time goes on and Flemeth informs Aveline that he's beyond saving. Chickene compassionately suggests there must be something we can do. Flemeth says becoming a Grey Warden would work, but we do NOT want to deal with the new guy in charge of them. So, Wesley asks Aveline to show him mercy and stab him. Suddenly feeling grumpy, Chickene tells her to hurry up and decide. Aveline does the deed and Cassandra interrupts the dwarf's story again.

The Seeker is skeptical about Flemeth's involvement, but the dwarf shows her Kate Mulgrew's name in the voice acting credits, so Cassandra decides he's telling the truth. He continues, saying the Hawke family made it to Gwaren, boarded a ship and had a long, uncomfortable ride to the "free" city of Kirkwall. When we get there, we see that a bunch of other people from Ferelden decided to climb aboard something that floats and make for Kirkwall, too. The viscount and the knight-commander of the city's templars have already decided to close the gates to refugees. Leandra thinks we have a better chance of getting in since we actually have family here, so she tells Chickene to start acting belligerent again so we can speak to someone in charge.

We eventually meet guard captain Ewald and tell him we have an uncle Gamlen, who's a nobleman in Kirkwall. Ewald says he knows a Gamlen, but he sure as hell isn't noble and mentions something about rubbing coins. The less we know about that, the better. He promises to let us know if he shows up, which doesn't go over well with a group of well-armed refugees who have been trying to get in for days. They decide to assault the gate and we wind up fighting alongside the guards to stop them. Grateful for our assistance, Ewald says he'll track down Gamlen personally and bring him here.

We make sure to thank the bodies of the conveniently idiotic deserters before proceeding to the next scene.

It takes a few days, but Gamlen shows up. Leandra is initially happy to see him, until he says he essentially lost the family estate in a poker game and if we want to get into the city, we'll have to work off the debt for a year. Chickene grumbles that Gamlen should have found a better way, then kindly says he's only concerned with making sure his mom is safe. Leandra's not going anywhere without her two remaining children though, and Carver says a year's a small price to pay for our lives. So, Chickene decides to talk to Gamlen's mercenary contact, Meeran.

The leader of the Red Iron mercenaries is blunt and straightforward, which Carver seems to like. He says he'll pay our way into the city and let us work for him for a year if we deal with someone who cheated him first. Specifically, a refugee named Friedrich who has surrounded himself with bodyguards and will flee if he sees anyone in a Red Iron uniform. Since we're unknowns, we can get closer. It's good thing for Meeran that Chickene's not feeling nice, as we inform Friedrich he's a dead man and let Carver live up to his name.

"I approve of your methods, and your receding hairline. Maybe now the men will make fewer jokes about mine."

Meeran is satisfied with our results, and we finalize the deal. We tell Gamlen and Leandra the news, which gets a lukewarm response. Our mother's not happy that the family estate is gone, and our uncle's not happy that she and her two sons will be moving in with him. Chickene is just glad to be out of the tutorial level. The dwarf's narration cuts in again, saying that trouble started brewing with the mages and the Qunari during our first year... but more importantly, it's when we finally find out who in the hell our narrator is.