Dragon Age Inquisition Playthrough - Wibbly Wobbly, Magey Wagey

The choice between allying with mages or Templars in Dragon Age II was fairly ambiguous from a moral perspective. On the one hand, Meredith was a paranoid despot and her Templars were clearly overzealous and oppressive in their treatment of mages. At the same time, many mages were just monsters waiting to surface and Anders' destruction of the Chantry proved how dangerous they were. You could make a strong case for either side... but I don't think that's true in Dragon Age Inquisition. The leader of the Templars acts like another Meredith, whereas the leader of the mage rebellion is reasonable and you don't see blood mages or abominations among her ranks. At the same time, siding with the Templars means you'll allow a power grab from a rival empire to go unchecked, which could lead to another magical disaster. There's no good reason to side with the Templars this time around unless you think all mages are evil, and it's unfortunate that this part of the story didn't retain the same ambiguity it held in the past.

"Sure, I did call for the extermination of everyone at the Lake Calenhad Circle, but that's not why I don't want to help the mages.
It's because attacking a castle is hard, guys. It's gonna be really, really hard. *pout*"

So, naturally, Torquemada informs her war council that she'll be headed back to Redcliffe to confront Magister Alexius and his claim on Ferelden's mages. Dorian makes an appearance at the war table too, to inform us that this isn't about the Tevinter Imperium trying to annex part of Ferelden. Alexius has joined a cult within Tevinter known as the Venatori, who revere a mysterious leader called the Elder One, and are obsessed with this "Herald of Andraste" who survived when the breach destroyed the conclave. This is why Alexius has requested to meet with Torquemada alone, and Cullen is more convinced than ever that this is a bad idea. He knows that Redcliffe Castle is a well-protected fortress and there's no way that his soldiers could come to our defense once we're behind the closed doors of the throne room. Leliana disagrees, however, because she has some experience with sneaking into Redcliffe Castle from Dragon Age: Origins. She says she'll have her agents take the secret tunnel that Bann Teagan (now Arl Teagan) told her about, while we keep Alexius distracted by playing nice at his meeting.

Dorian insists on accompanying Torquemada to Redcliffe Castle, and we decide to round out our party with Sera and Blackwall. After some more moaning from Cullen about how risky this operation is, and how it'll be the end of any hope for cooperation with the Templars, we finally set off for the castle. Getting into the throne room with Alexius is no problem because it's clear that's he's very eager to have us here. His bodyguards attempt to tell us that our followers aren't welcome in the meeting, but Torquemada insists that they'll go where she goes. Dorian stays hidden while we approach Alexius and the magister asks us what we could possibly have to offer him that would be equal in worth to his new mages. In an effort to keep up the act, Torquemada offers her connections with Orlesian nobility but Alexius says he's well-connected enough already. At that point, Felix and Dorian reveal that we know everything about his time magic and cultist ties. Alexius orders his guards to haul us to the dungeons, but they've been replaced by Leliana's agents. The spies swiftly kill everyone in the room still loyal to Alexius, leaving us alone with him.

"You come in here with a Grey Warden bodyguard wearing a ridiculous yellow gambeson? FOOL!

Clearly, green is the color that brings out his eyes the best! You're no match for my fashion sense!"

The magister is prepared, though. He produces an amulet glowing with magical energy, which Dorian recognizes and yells at him not to use. Ignoring this, Alexius opens a rift, but not one that demons come out of. The next thing we know, we have been teleported to another room, somewhere in the dungeons of Redcliffe Castle, and the only party member with us is Dorian. He's fascinated by the fact that we have been displaced, but Torquemada is more concerned that everyone else is gone and there's red lyrium growing out of the walls. Dorian muses that Alexius altered time again but got it wrong, and sent us to a different moment in time instead of removing us from existence completely. He also thinks that he can reverse the spell if he can find the amulet that was used to send us here in the first place. All we need to do is find our way out of the dungeons and track the guy down. Easy, right?

We don't know when or where exactly we are, but the dungeons are full of guards that appear to be loyal to Alexius. A series of staircases winds up and down throughout the lower levels, and Torquemada and Dorian begin wandering in the hope of finding someone who can give them more information. Fighting the guards isn't easy when it's just one mage and one rogue against heavily armored swordsmen, but we eventually find our way to a cell where a familiar woman is imprisoned. Fiona is alive, but she is partially fused with the red lyrium growing out of the walls. We ask her for information and she says everyone turns out this way over time. Red lyrium infects a person's blood, it grows out of them until they die, and then Alexius' men harvest the corpse for the last of the red lyrium. She also gives us the date, and we realize that we have been sent a full year forward in time. Alexius, and the Elder One his cult supports, have conquered the world with their army and their demons.

"Yes, you traveled through time, and before you make any more Doctor Who references, please kill me first."

Not far from Fiona, we find Blackwall and Sera, who are pulsing with red energy and are convinced that we're supposed to be dead. We manage to persuade both of them that they can still fight with us to get revenge on Alexius even if we are dead, and their desire for vengeance compels them to agree. They also tell us that Leliana is still imprisoned somewhere within the castle, and she may be able to tell us where to find the magister. Our spymaster is in a different part of the dungeons, but getting there is easier now that we have our archer and our tank back on our side. After fighting our way through a few groups of guards, we find a torture chamber where one of Alexius' men is still trying to break Leliana's will and by the look on her face, it looks like she's been here a long time. The torturer turns to face us when we confront him and Leliana uses the distraction to wrap her legs around his neck and strangle him. She then frees herself and says she's ready to follow us again.

This is right up there alongside Meredith's death as one of the most unnecessary subtitles ever.

As we head back down to the main hallway of the dungeon, a large group of guards is lowering a drawbridge to investigate the disturbance. Torquemada slips into the shadows, gets behind the group and starts backstabbing while her followers take the guards head-on. Like other groups, this one doesn't last long and the path upstairs is now open to us. Leliana says that Alexius rarely leaves the throne room, so we should work our way there. The stairs lead to an outdoor courtyard and upon looking up at the sky, we see that the breach that filled a small circle of sky above Haven now stretches as far as the eye can see. There are also rifts in the courtyard, with groups of demons guarding them. Thankfully, the time travel didn't mess up Torquemada's glowy hand in any way, so once our group of five is finished killing the demons, we close the rifts and continue on our way. The throne room is in the central area of the castle, and there are plenty of guards there standing between us and Alexius.

We get to work on fighting our way through more of the magister's lackeys, including a larger fellow who has a shard of pure red lyrium on him. Dorian suggests holding onto it and when we find the door to the throne room, we realize this is a good idea. There are five notches carved into the door and one of them lights up in response to the shard we're carrying... which means we need four more from some of Alexius' most trusted guards. Luckily, everyone in the party is committed to taking their rage out on the magister, so finding four elite guards and fighting against them as a warm-up is not a tall order. By the time we're done, most of the guards in the castle have been killed and we have five red lyrium shards to open the door to Alexius' chambers.

Damn it, I just collected MacGuffins for you. The least you could do is look me in the eye.

The magister doesn't have the same cocky sense of bravado when we talk to him this time. He says that the fact that we survived is his final failure, but it doesn't matter because all that any of us can do is wait for the end. Attempting to take advantage of his somber attitude, Torquemada tells him that there is hope, because he can give us the amulet and stop this timeline from happening. Alexius says it's impossible to stop the Elder One though, and that all he wanted was to keep his son safe. Dorian notices that Felix is standing next to him, but is literally a shell of his former self. Leliana takes matters into her own hands, grabbing Felix from behind and demanding the amulet. Alexius pleads for her to let him go and before Torquemada can mediate things, Leliana slashes Felix's throat to force the battle that she clearly desires. Enraged, Alexius gives her the fight she wants.

Even with a larger group than normal, fighting Alexius is not easy. He surrounds himself with glyphs of rift energy that explode if you walk on them, and he fires powerful spells from within the safety of these wards. When he takes too much damage, he surrounds himself with a forcefield and opens up a fade rift so demons can fight us while he regains his strength. Torquemada ensures that the rifts don't stay open for long though, and is nimble enough to jump over his glyphs most of the time. It's a long battle, but Alexius finally falls and Dorian plucks the amulet off his body. He confirms that it's the same amulet he displaced us with and it's also something he helped Alexius craft years ago. All he needs is about an hour to work out the intricacies of the spell and he can reverse all this damage. The pounding sounds of approaching guards tell us that we don't have an hour, though.

"Don't move. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead.
...We killed Fiona before making this reference, right? Okay, good."

Leliana looks out and says Alexius must have summoned the Elder One, and his much more powerful minions are approaching the throne room. Blackwall and Sera say they will go out and meet them, while Leliana stays by the door as a last line of defense. Torquemada doesn't want to abandon her friends even though this timeline will be erased if we succeed, but Dorian pulls her away as he begins casting the spell. Leliana's arrows strike guard after guard with deadly precision and she continues to fight on even after taking an arrow to the chest herself. Before the forces can overwhelm her, Dorian finishes opening a rift with the amulet and he and Torquemada are pulled through it. They land back in the throne room, moments after Alexius originally displaced them. Torquemada tells the magister that he'll have to do better than that.

Alexius sinks to his knees in defeat, not in despair over failing the Elder One as much as the fact that he will not get the cure he was promised for his son's fatal disease. Felix tells his father that everyone dies some day, and he has already accepted his fate. We return to Fiona to inform her that the mages are no longer indebted to Tevinter, but we're not the only one who has come to see her. Anora, Queen of Ferelden, is in the middle of telling Fiona that she promised the mages sanctuary as long as her people remained safe and she has clearly not lived up to that promise. She's kicking the mages out of Redcliffe and is prepared to imprison them all if they don't comply. Torquemada tells Fiona that the mages can join up with the Inquisition instead. Fiona asks if it will be as prisoners or allies, but Torquemada decides that the mages won't be any good to her if they are giving assistance under duress. So, we tell her that it will be an alliance. Fiona accepts, as does Anora on the condition that they leave her lands.

I suspect this scene would have been much more awkward, in a charming kind of way, if I uploaded a save where Alistair was king.

Back in Haven, Torquemada's war council is pleased to hear that we have accomplished a task that seemed impossible, but they are skeptical about our decision. Cullen in particular says that giving mages as much freedom as we have is incredibly dangerous, and incidents involving abominations and maleficarum are inevitable. Torquemada tells Cullen that she will reign the mages in, if and only if they show that they are incapable of behaving themselves. Until then, she assumes their desire to help is genuine and will trust them to deal with their own troublemakers. Regardless, the mages' ability and willingness to help the Inquisition is about to be put to the test, because with this many magic-users on our side, we're ready to see if enough power can be channeled through Torquemada's mark to close the breach for good.

Torquemada is quick to point out to her more skeptical followers that the Dalish don't have nearly as many problems with mages.

Her arguments are an excerpt from a paper she submitted to an Orlesian academy, entitled "Elves Rule and Humans Drool".

A mission appears on the war table that allows us to mobilize our forces and head back to the breach. Well, there's no time like the present to do that. Along with Cassandra, Solas and Cullen, our substantial mage army arrives in the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes and lines up behind Torquemada. Solas directs the mages to wait for her to connect to the breach, then direct their magic toward the beam of energy she projects. Torquemada reaches up to close the rift as usual, and the mages raise their staves as her hand pulses with energy. The green light show is the most intense we've experienced so far and although she looks strained, Torquemada stays on her feet until a blast erupts from the breach and everyone is knocked down. When the dust settles, we look up to see that our efforts were completely successful. The breach has disappeared.

Cassandra, in a jovial mood. You can tell she's jovial because she's not attacking a training dummy in a fit of violent zeal.

A short while later in Haven, villagers are dancing and singing to celebrate the closure of the breach. As Torquemada watches from outside the Chantry, Cassandra approaches and says her men are still getting reports of small rifts in the countryside, but for now the greatest danger has passed. There is still work to be done, but this is a victory. Torquemada modestly says that she didn't do it alone, but Cassandra tells her that it was only possible because of Torquemada's skill and perseverance. It seems like everyone, even Cassandra, can unwind a little for now... but then we spot a countless number of torches approaching from the hills near Haven. An army, a very large one at that, is approaching the Inquisition's stronghold and their only purpose can be to eradicate everyone in Haven.