Dragon Age 2 — Story Playthrough — Part Eighteen.

Lyria and Carver had discovered that their father had once helped the Grey Wardens contain great evil in an old prison erased from memory and knowledge. It was what he had to do to allow their family to flee to Ferelden.

Now they needed to remove this great evil before some brainwashed Wardens freed it.

The brainwashed Wardens had been the ones who had sent the Carta after them, and they were still down here now, thwarting their every step as they sought to approach Corypheus and kill him.

A group of Carta dwarves trapped them in this chamber to allow the Wardens time to reach Corypheus. Lyria and her group quickly disposed of them.

Once the dwarves were dead, they had to work out how to escape from this newly sealed chamber. The mage staff that served as key wasn't seeming to help here.

Instead, they had to turn a few pillars that were situated in the room so that a magical beam could access the barriers that entrapped them, and those beams removed the seals and let them pass through the doors.

Corypheus' prison was just ahead, they had to get to him before the Wardens...

But it was too late. The Wardens were already there. And now that Lyria and her brother were there too, all the Wardens needed was to kill them so that they could use their Hawke blood to free Corypheus.

Lyria refused to be taken, refused her or Carver's blood to be used in this manner. They fought the Wardens, and emerged victorious.

Larius and Lyria approached the prison centre. Larius begged Lyria to do it now, to kill the evil darkspawn before it was too late. Even now he was starting to awaken, and that could not be allowed.

Unfortunately, in order to kill the creature... Lyria had to free him first. There was no other choice now. She hoped that they were strong enough to defeat this thing. Surely it had to be incredibly powerful for Wardens to have locked it up instead of killing it...

With doubts manifesting, she deactivated the last pillar that held the creature, and prepared to kill it.

A strange looking darkspawn rose from the centre of the room, more man-like than creature, tall, and with gnarled hands. He spoke in an odd way, as though from thousands of years ago.

He asked why the roads were so empty. Where were the dwarves? Were they slaves? Was this a dream? He demanded to be brought before the temple of Dumat.

Anders was immediately on edge. Dumat had been the very first Archdemon the Grey Wardens had defeated, the one that had started the Blights nearly a thousand years go. There were certainly no temples dedicated to him anymore.

Then the creature started talking about the Golden City and how it was black and corrupted; it was supposed to be golden. He needed the light!

Lyria paled. Were the old Chantry stories true? But then forced herself to remain stoic.

It didn't matter if the Chantry stories were true or not.

Corypheus flew into a rage and yelled that if they were not going to allow him to leave, he would leave through them.

Unable to leave this room, they were contained as they fought against the creature. Jagged rocks sprung from the floor and encased them in areas, lightning bolts jabbed around the room and icicles landed on their heads.

Shades manifested as they navigated the arena to get to Corypheus and they had to take them down too. As whooshing flames swept around the room, Varric fell. Luckily Lyria had been working on learning some healing magic of her own thanks to Anders influence and was able to revive him and heal him.

Finally, after the very lengthy battle, Corypheus had been weakened enough... Lyria slammed the mage-key-staff into the ground and, connected with that which flowed through her, Corypheus fell to the floor... seemingly dead.

Larius thanked Lyria for her deed that day. His head was clear now, he no longer heard Corypheus calling to him... he needed to tell the Warden-Commander that this threat was gone.

He thanked her once again, this time for his freedom...

He sure was speaking strange, not like he had before, but Lyria shrugged. She supposed his head had simply cleared, as he said.

Back in Kirkwall and no longer under threat by the constant attack of brainwashed Carta dwarves, Carver spent some time at the estate with Lyria and their mother.

Of course it didn't take long for the siblings to start arguing and fighting again, however, and Carver soon returned to the Grey Wardens.

Their mother hadn't known about the Warden deal with their father either, but she didn't care. His actions had allowed them a new life and they shouldn't waste it. Mother was also annoyed with her for constantly picking fights with her brother, though Lyria preferred to think of it as the other way around.

No, they shouldn't waste what they had. And Lyria's lot in life had become a lot more interesting these days as she thought of the city and remembered that she was supposed to be helping with the qunari. The Viscount was probably pissing himself with worry. She needed to get back to work after this unexpected diversion. There was no time to ruminate on the events that had just occurred.

The next morning it was straight to the Chantry to speak with the Grand Cleric about the qunari... considering a templar was using her seal to bribe guardsmen into looking the other way as qunari were taken off the streets in broad daylight.

Aveline was a bit grumpy about being dragged along, thinking it inappropriate that the captain of the guard be there for such accusations, but Lyria encouraged her to stay. She liked having her along on all of her adventures so it was like she had sanction to do the things that she did.

Unfortunately they weren't able to speak with the Grand Cleric. A very familiar face stood in their way. Petrice.

Lyria raised an eyebrow. Qunari trouble once again, and once again this Chantry woman was in front of her. It immediately became clear. This woman was misusing the Grand Cleric's seal for her own nefarious purposes.

Petrice didn't deny it, but also tried to offer a scapegoat. Her old templar bodyguard was the one doing it, she proclaimed. Petrice gave them a location of where to find him, and to see for herself the chaos these qunari were sowing.

Lyria didn't like it, but she needed more answers before she could approach the Viscount and tell him it was this woman's fault. She agreed to go to this place and see what was happening, against her better judgement.

When Lyria got to the area Petrice had sent them, she saw no qunari sowing chaos — only the templar and a bunch of his followers.

He had the qunari strung up as he tortured them and crowed about how weak they were. Which in turn angered Anders; it seemed that all templars knew where to cage beings and hurt them, mage or not.

Suddenly Petrice barged in and demanded answers from the templar, pretending as though she didn't know why he was there. Petrice demanded that he give Lyria some answers, then fled as he raised his sword and attacked.

The templar had so many followers. They came out of every shadow and crevice, ordinary men and women who would otherwise have no business down in the undercity but who considered themselves the faithful who would force the qunari from the city.

Lyria regretted having to kill so many ordinary people, but she had no choice. Soon they and the templar were all dead. She needed to tell the Viscount, now.

She raced to the Viscount's office and dragged him down to the slums so he could see for himself the dire situation the city was in with regards to the qunari.

He could scarcely believe that the Chantry was involved. This just made everything so much worse. Lyria warned him about Petrice, but since the woman was so slippery in her endeavours, Lyria had no real proof to implicate her in this.

They would have to tell the Arishok what had happened here. It was not going to be a fun conversation, that was for sure. The Viscount said he would call for her once he met with the qunari.

Sighing, Lyria returned home only to found Gamlen shouting at her house-dwarves.

Apparently her mother was supposed to visit him today, as she did on this day every week, but she had never shown up. Gamlen asked if she were here, was she feeling sick? These dwarves weren't giving him any answers!

First, Lyria said, he was speaking with the savant. The savant never gave answers. Then Bodahn came along and said that he hadn't seen her all day. That perhaps she was out with her suitor.

Gamlen was shocked. She had never mentioned a suitor before... Bodahn said that she had even received a bouquet of white lillies from him, just this morning.

Lyria's world stopped around her. White lillies. And her mother was missing? Had the Kirkwall White Lily Murderer claimed her mother? She had to leave the house and find her mother before it was too late.

Gamlen would hear nothing of murderers and white lillies. His sister, Lyria's mother, she had to be okay. Lyria placated him by saying that she'd get Aveline and the city guard onto the watch... but deep down she knew she'd have to hurry.

 

Until next time! 🐲⚔️

 

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_{All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, @kaelci and are from the game: Dragon Age 2.}