Dragon Age 2 — Story Playthrough — Part Sixteen.

Lyria had helped Merrill obtain a tool to fix the eluvian, found out more information about who may have been involved with the qunari disappearances, and somewhat helped Aveline on a failed quest for love.

Varric had told her that Bartrand was back in the city though and after their boring night at the tavern Lyria couldn't wait for some action — namely punching Bartrand in the face for leaving them to die in the deep roads.

Grabbing Varric, they left the Hanged Man and headed to Hightown where it was rumoured Bartrand had recently bought a house.

When they got to the address however, the house appeared abandoned. It was like no one had lived there for several years. She asked if Varric were certain this was address... and it was. People had been seen on it literally yesterday.

Heading inside, they were greeted by guards.. only these ones weren't quite normal. They seemed almost crazed. They were attacking because they were mad, not because intruders were in the house. It was very strange.

Suddenly a scared dwarf appeared. He reached out to Varric. Apparently Bartrand had gone mad. Ever since he had taken that strange statue out of the deep roads, he had heard the thing singing to him. It had driven Bartrand crazy. So crazy that Bartrand was killing his own servants and twisting the minds of his house!

He pleaded with Varric to do something, to help.

They found Bartrand in the next room and he attacked them on sight alongside more of his crazed guards.

Soon though, they knocked the fight out of Bartrand and he fell to the floor, shrieking about a song that he could no longer hear, and that he shouldn't have sold the statue to that woman, he needed to find it and get it back so he could hear the song once more.

Anders stepped in. If Bartrand weren't a dwarf, he'd be certain that the man was possessed by a demon, but dwarves could not be possessed. Something very dark had tainted his mind and he could help clear it, but it wouldn't last for long, only for a few minutes.

He performed his healing magic and cleared Bartrand's mind.

Bartrand was surprised to recognise his brother and begged him for help. He didn't want House Tethras to fall like this, with his actions.

Varric, no longer angry but instead caring about whatever had happened to his brother, promised to look after him. Turning to Lyria he said that he would look into who had purchased the statue. If nothing else, they needed to be warned that this thing seemed quite dangerous. Lyria agreed and told him she was looking forward to finding out whatever he learned of this situation.

The next morning Aveline sent Lyria a message. She would be patrolling the coast with Donnic, and if Lyria could kindly make sure there were no diversions on the path, that would be great.

While Aveline was walking the patrol with Donnic, Lyria took on groups of wild mabari, slavers, bandits, and even more mabari. It seemed that most of Ferelden has brought mabari with them and then let them loose in the wilds, they didn't seem to belong to anyone.

Either way, she took care of them all so Aveline could patrol in peace with her intended.

Every so often, she and Varric and Anders would peer around some bushes to see how things were faring, but nothing seemed to be faring at all.

Finally, they decided to confront Aveline and Donnic and get Aveline to just outright tell the man what was going on. Donnic certainly wanted to know, he was so confused.

Varric kindly obliged by telling Donnic that he'd show him by drawing a picture of where Aveline wanted to touch him, wink wink.

Donnic seemed quite surprised and walked away, while Aveline glared at Lyria and Varric and demanded they meet her back at the barracks to fix this mess they had just started. Donnic was going to report her for indecency! Lyria had to explain that it was all a mistake.

Back at the barracks, Aveline fretted and fretted over what was going to happen. How the Viscount was going to discipline her. How she was going to lose the trust of the city guard... but then Donnic walked over and requested to see her in her office.

Lyria eavesdropped for a bit, heard several giggles from Aveline, then smiled and walked away to leave the kids to their shenanigans.

Despite the rocky start, Aveline finally had her man.

Returning home for the day, Lyria was surprised to find a message from Carver. Dwarves from the Carta had attacked him, had infiltrated a Grey Warden keep in order to get at him, "to get the blood of Hawke", and he had been granted leave to investigate the situation with Lyria by his side, since she, too, was a Hawke and was in danger.

Lyria was loathe to leave Kirkwall while there seemed to be a war brewing, but she couldn't deny her brother, especially not if their family was in danger. She grabbed Anders and Varric and hurried to meet up with him.

They met up with Carver north of Kirkwall's coast and in the middle of a desert pass. Despite his pigheaded-ness, Lyria was glad to see him alive and well, especially after they had last parted ways with him sick and near death.

They were after the Carta and the trail Carver had followed led here. Merchants Guild dwarves lay dead as did their animals, crates and chests were smashed and on fire. This wasn't something the Carta normally did, and Varric was very confused.

Further down the trail and into some ruins, they came across the dwarves.

Their eyes were greyed and glossed over, and they spoke strangely. They were pleased that two of Malcolm Hawke's children had come. They needed their blood!

Lyria wanted to know what her father had to do with this, but they didn't answer. Carver suggested that maybe their father had crossed the Carta somehow, but there was still no answer from the dwarves — they screamed for their blood and that they had no choice but to take it. Corypheus would walk once more once they had it.

Lyria had no idea what was going on but no one was taking her blood, or Carver's.

They fought through the dwarves until they all lay dead, then rifled through their pockets hoping to find more information.

There was none.

Varric was adamant that the Carta did not act like this; they may be thugs, but they were also businessmen. Something else was going on here. Of that, Lyria had no doubt. She was used to "something else" always going on.

They investigated the area around the ruins and came across mention of a prison being guarded by dwarves. That this sect of dwarves needed to protect the area and make sure that whatever within did not awaken.

This was just getting more and more dire. Lyria did not approve.

They were set upon by more and more dwarves, yelling that the Hawkes needed to be taken alive so they could drain them of their blood. Declarations that only made Lyria fight harder for no one was going to be taking her blood. She refused.

These dwarves were mental.

Finally the dwarves lay dead and they found a key that opened a gate that allowed them to continue onwards towards the Carta's main hideout. A hideout that looked as though it lay within the deep roads beneath this fortress's ruins.

Lyria sighed. That's exactly what she wanted... to go back into the deep roads after all these years. Not. Gathering her group, they descended beneath the ruins.

 

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.}