Aveline is less than pleased with the idea of accompanying Hawke to accuse the Grand Cleric of funding zealots, but since she's the only good tank available to us, we tell her to deal with it. Fortunately for Aveline, the Grand Cleric doesn't grant an audience to just anyone but a familiar face comes to greet us instead. Mother Petrice, who we met in Act One as Sister Petrice when she tried to get us killed smuggling a Qunari mage out of the city, asks us what we're doing here. Chickene gruffly tells her that the Grand Cleric is condoning kidnapping. Petrice is skeptical, but when we mention the orders with the appropriate seal, she hesitates. Hawke discerns that Petrice knew about this, so she makes us a deal. She tells us the Qunari were abducted by her former bodyguard, Ser Varnell, but he's not marching to her tune as closely as he should be these days. Petrice offers to lead us to him as a peace offering and we accept, since this is really our only option.
"Go ahead and kill my most trusted collaborator, and I promise I won't try to seek revenge later."
We head to Darktown, a place that even Varric says we should spend as little time in as possible, and locate the entrance to the tunnel where the Secret Qunari-Hating Club is meeting. Sure enough, a Templar is standing in front of a group of bound Qunari and ranting to his supporters about their evil ways. Mother Petrice is true to her word and appears by our side, trying to intimidate her former bodyguard into backing down. He's too consumed by his zeal to listen, so Chickene invites him to fight someone who's not tied up. The Templar obliges, but not before killing the entire Qunari delegation.
One fight later, Mother Petrice has made herself scarce and Hawke has some more bad news to deliver. Viscount Dumar himself makes an appearance in the undercity to confirm these are the delegates he's looking for. He's satisfied that we killed the extremists but is unsure of how to deal with the Arishok over this. Chickene tells him that the Arishok is sure to find out eventually and the Viscount had better be honest. He thanks Hawke for his advice, and we part ways for now.
"First, an impending Qunari revolt, then a dead Templar, and now I have undercity filth on my boots."
With that settled, we turn our attention to a Templar who we actually kind of like: Ser Emeric, the man who was investigating Ninette's disappearance and the connection to women murdered in Act One. He's still trying to track down the killer, but has managed to earn the ire of Knight-Commander Meredith with his investigation of an influential noble named Gascard DuPuis. We meet him in the Gallows, where he asks us to break into DuPuis' house again. Aveline points out that her guardsmen already raided the house on his suggestion and found nothing, but he insists that DuPuis is hiding something. Since Hawke has nothing better to do, he agrees.
Upon entering the Hightown mansion that evening, we're immediately assaulted by Shades and a Lesser Rage Demon. Either the guardsmen are less thorough than Aveline would like us to believe, or DuPuis has suddenly decided to put up a bunch of magical defenses. Since the only way to find out is to ask him, we vanquish every nasty Fade spirit in our path and find DuPuis in the master bedroom, standing over a terrified-looking woman. He sees us enter and says he knows this looks bad, but he's not a killer. Chickene lets him talk, more out of curiosity to hear his bad excuse than anything else (Varric even bets us 20 silver he'll blame a one-armed man).
Chickene calls out Gascard for being a liar. The irony is almost palpable.
Gascard's story is believable, though: his sister was murdered a few years back after receiving a bouquet of white lilies, and he's using this woman as bait since she too received such a bouquet. The woman says Gascard hurt her, and he tries to explain that he just needed some of her blood. We ask him if that's blood magic and he says yes, he had to augment his powers with forbidden magic to avenge his sister. Chickene's not sure if he's the killer or not, but he just outed himself as a demon-summoning maleficarum and we only let Merrill get away with that crap.
After chasing Gascard through his mansion and killing him, we head back to the Gallows to tell Emeric the semi-good news. He's not there though, and one of his fellow Templars is confused because we told him to meet us tonight. Chickene asks to see the letter, and confirms that he didn't write it. So, we rush to the blind alley that Emeric was told to go to, but find that we're too late. A shade has already killed him and there's a group of other demons alongside it that attack us, too. Once the actual fighting is over, our new Templar friend rushes in and asks us about Emeric's last lead, Gascard. We inform her that we already killed him, so he can't be responsible. She says she'll report this to Meredith in Emeric's stead, and we walk away from yet another disappointing outcome.
The Templars' heraldry, called the "Silver Sword of Mercy", really ought to be re-named.
Given how ineffective they are, "Tin Butter Knife of Ineptitude" would be more accurate.
Just when it seems things couldn't get worse, we return to our manor to find Uncle Gamlen inside. Chickene prepares to shake him down and check his pockets for silverware, but Gamlen says he's here because our mother Leandra missed their weekly get-together. Bodahn says he hasn't seen her all day either, but suggest she might be with her suitor because someone sent her a bouquet of white lilies. Chickene recognizes this as one of the few things Gascard DuPuis said that he actually believed. We tell Gamlen about the possibility of a serial killer and he agrees that we should look for Leandra in Lowtown tonight, once the crowds have thinned out.
Later, we catch up with Gamlen as he's trying to get information out of a street urchin. The youth is reluctant to give information at first, since Gamlen isn't rich enough to bribe anyone, but is much more helpful when Chickene tosses coins his way. We learn that Leandra stopped to help an injured man who was bleeding, and he led her deeper into Lowtown. There's still a blood trail too, which we follow to a familiar-looking foundry where we found Ninette's body in the previous act. With no time to lose, Chickene rushes into the foundry and is confronted by more demons. We eliminate them all and Chickene runs over to inspect a woman's body nearby, only to find that it is the woman Gascard was using as bait earlier, so we move on.
Hawke discovers a macabre shrine, and Merrill actually says it's "pretty".
...You know why we're ignoring the romance options in this game? Because of moments like THAT.
The killer's lair is about as disturbing as one would expect. There are a series of notes talking about preserving body parts, discarded books about evil magic including necromancy, and a shrine to a woman who looks strikingly similar to Leandra. Eventually, we come face to face with the madman behind all this: an older mage standing near a tall chair with a woman sitting in it. He tells us that our mother was chosen for a divine experiment that allowed him to bring his wife back from the dead. Specifically, he took body parts from a number of women to get his dead wife's specific features right and chose Leandra's head since she's the spitting image of the dead woman. As he finishes, his flesh golem rises to stand by his side.
This guy is definitely in the running for "character we want to kill the most".
The ensuing battle is arduous, as this mage has killed many women and corrupted versions of their spirits are summoned to attack us. Those spirits are in addition to the regular swarms of shades and reanimated corpses at his command. Chickene's aura, which heals over time, comes in handy during this fight, and so does his dispel magic ability once the killer is weakened enough to be the target of our attacks. The mage takes enough damage to be knocked down when Chickene strips him of his spells and he's an easy target to be finished off by Aveline and Varric from there. Unfortunately, his magic dies with him. The walking corpse with Leandra's head takes a couple of shambling steps before collapsing into Chickene's arms.
Leandra has temporarily regained her senses and thanks her son for doing what he had to do. She is free of the serial killer mage's control and is at peace, knowing she will see Bethany again soon. Chickene tells her that he failed her, but Leandra tells him it wasn't his fault and she's always been proud of him. After that, her life slips away and Chickene is left to deal with not only another failed mission, but his Uncle Gamlen.
Well, at least she died as she lived: in a wedding dress, stitched together with a dozen other women.
...This is exactly why we let Varric handle all the narration duties.
Gamlen is beside himself over Leandra's death and demands to know what happened. Chickene tells him the truth, which only makes things worse. He rants for a while about the evils of magic, which Chickene takes offense to but Gamlen refuses to apologize for it. He then says he'll go to the Gallows to inform our brother Carver personally. Chickene is finally left alone in the manor, though Aveline stops by briefly to say we'll know where to find her if we need to talk.
So, you'd think this would be the lowest point of the game. The Qunari situation is degrading, we keep showing up to solve problems after it's too late to save people and to top it all off, our mom was just murdered. Surely things can only go uphill from here? Not so much. Another letter from the viscount just arrived and Hawke has learned that once again, he needs our help in dealing with a delicate, Qunari-related situation... and we all know how well that has worked out so far.
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