Once again, it’s time to check in with my progress in Dragon Age: Origins. And, unlike last week, I’m actually writing this in a timely manner, so I have a pretty good idea of what went down. This week, I take care of a couple of my party members’ personal quests, as well as start working on recruiting the dwarves to help out with the blight. But, as always, let’s go over some numbers before I start. Ivan Ooze is currently level 14 and my total play time is 19 hours .

At camp, I talk to Wynne who fills me in on why she’s been feeling so weak lately. Apparently, she died during the initial attack on the mage tower, before we came and cleaned up that whole situation. She was saved by a spirit in the fade. So, I guess she’s some kind of zombie now. Wynne is living on borrowed time, as the spirit within her seems to be losing power. I tell her to make the best use of her time.

I decide to take care of Morrigan’s personal quest, which I don’t remember if I actually mentioned in a previous post. If I forgot to mention it, basically, Morrigan revealed that her mother, Flemeth has lived an impossibly long time by transferring her consciousness into other, younger bodies before she dies. Apparently, she intends to do this to Morrigan. Morrigan has asked Ivan to kill Flemeth and recover her grimoire. So, I gather up my party and head to Flemeth’s hut.

On the way there, I get into a random encounter, that ends up not being so random. A cutscene plays out where our party gets ambushed. Wynne suddenly unlocks a new power and heals the party. We quickly kill off the baddies, and Wynne explains that this new power came from the spirit that saved her. Awful convenient that this happened right after she told me about it.

So, anyway, back on to killing Flemeth. We arrive at the hut, but the witch is waiting for us. She seems to be aware that Morrigan had figured out her plan, and tries to talk us into letting her go and just pretending that we had killed her. I decide against this, and Flemeth turns into a dragon. This fight isn’t too hard, in fact it’s easier than the dragon I fought last week. Basically, I just kept auto-attacking and using abilities as their cooldowns ended while making sure to swap to my different party members to use healing items whenever they got a little low on health. Flemeth dies, we grab the grimoire, and we’re done with that.

To finish the quest, I need to bring the grimoire to Morrigan back at camp, but I figure that can wait until the next time I actually need to go to camp. Instead, I head to the mountains where the dwarves live. After killing a couple baddies and talking to some fairly useless NPCs, I find my way to the entrance to Orzammar. There’s a couple guards in front of the door, as well as a group of humans looking to get in.

The humans are some of Loghain’s men. The guards refuse to let them in. I try to get in, and they won’t let me because I’ve already been banished. I explain that I’m now a Grey Warden and I need to enter the city to recruit the dwarves to my cause. They let me in, which pisses off the humans. I tell them to get out of here and enter the city.

Orzammar has had some trouble since I left. The king died shortly after I left, but chose Harrowmont, his second in command, to take his place. Ivan’s brother Bhelen, the one responsible for killing Trian and getting Ivan banished, believes he should be in charge as he is the next in the bloodline. This situation is quickly leading to a civil war, unless something can be done about it.

Right away I like this story better than the ones from the previous main quests. Every other one basically boiled down to, “sure, we’d love to help, but there’s a random apocalypse happening right now! Deal with that first!” This one feels more natural and has a much less “black and white” feel to it.

I decide to go looking for Harrowmont. There’s no way the Bhelen would want to see me, and he’s kind of a villain, so I figure I’d best leave him alone. On the way there, I encounter one of the girls I had a threeway with back in the very first entry in this series. Apparently, she has birthed a son, but with me being banished, she can no longer use him to get into a higher caste. I tell her that I will figure something out to help.

I head into Harrowmont’s place, but I can’t talk to him just yet. Harrowmont’s lieutenant Dulin requests that I fight as Harrowmont’s champion in the Glory Provings before I can talk to Harrowmont. Apparently, his other champions have backed out. I agree and also offer to find out what happened.

As it turns out, one of the other champions is being blackmailed over some love letters and the other is just kind of done with it all. I tell the second to get back into the game with a little intimidation, and that seems to work. I then sneak into a room belonging to one of Bhelen’s champions and recover the love letters.

Next up, I enter the Provings. It’s more or less the same as last time, except sometimes I have to fight more than one enemy at a time. But still, it’s just a series of easy fights. Eventually, I’m the winner, and so I return to talk to Harrowmont. Harrowmont wants me to deal with the Carta, a dwarven crime syndicate. That sounds neat, but also like a good place to stop for the week. So, make sure you come back next week and see how this plays out for me.