After investigating the Blackmarsh and killing the evil baroness that had torn the veil asunder, Caelyra and her group, including Justice trapped in Kristoff's decaying body, headed back for Vigil's Keep.
Once they arrived at the Keep, they didn't go far before a woman accosted them. She was Kristoff's wife and she was so happy to see him! Was grateful that he was okay!
The spirit of Justice intervened. He was not Kristoff, he was just using this body. The woman was horrified and ran away, shrieking about her husband.
Justice buried his borrowed head in his hands. He had caused this woman great pain. He had to go and see her. He had vague memories of her from Kristoff's mind, her name was Aura and they had been married and were very deeply in love. If he could just go and put her mind at ease...
Caelyra wasn't sure it was a good idea, but agreed. Perhaps he could do some good in that body.
They wandered around the city of Amaranthine, but couldn't find the woman and Justice, for all of his borrowed memories, didn't know which house she lived in.
Finally they stopped by the chantry.
And found the woman praying within.
Justice went over to her and tried to placate her, he told her that he was a spirit of Justice and he would do whatever he could to avenge Kristoff's death at the hands of the darkspawn.
Aura seemed calmer now and thanked Justice for doing what he could for her husband, and that as long as justice was served, she would allow him her husband's body a little longer before she would prepare it for a funeral.
Caelyra was pleased that that went so swimmingly. Now they could go back to Vigil's Keep as originally planned and check in with the Seneschal.
It looked like they had arrived just in time too, for the room was filled with frantic nobles.
They were frantic for good reason. An army of darkspawn was moving through the lands and the city of Amaranthine was under attack! They were just there; they should've stayed for longer, Caelyra kicked herself.
She grabbed Anders, Nathaniel and Justice and bade them come with her to protect the city while everyone else stayed to defend the Keep and the approaching army. The Keep should be safe in her absence; she had done so much to repair and protect it since the last attack.
The clash of weapons and gurgle of bloody screams greeted them as they walked the road to the city.
They pulled out their weapons and rushed to the attack, quickly liberating the small houses on the outskirts of the city. Darkspawn stench filled the air. Hopefully there were still actually people left to save...
The city guard rushed over to them — Amaranthine had fallen. Strange creatures had come into the city, creatures they had never seen before, and an entire quarter of the city had been blighted within a day. Amaranthine was lost - they should just burn the city and all the darkspawn that were inside.
Caelyra would not do that! Surely there were still some survivors. They had to do whatever they could.
Suddenly a lone darkspawn approached. The guard yelled to kill it but it started talking, seeking help from Caelyra. It said that a great army was approaching the Keep, that the Mother wanted it and all the Grey Wardens destroyed, and that the Architect wanted to aid them.
Caelyra couldn't trust a word coming out of the darkspawn's mouth. It wanted her to rush back to the Keep, and then slay the Mother. It wanted her to take part in this despicable faction war between the darkspawn and she would have none of it.
She looked the creature in the eye and said that she was saving what was left of Amaranthine city and it could either help her or perish. It said that it would help, that it didn't want to fight the Wardens and neither did the Architect.
They raced through the city and rescued small pockets of guards fighting groups of darkspawn. They ran to the Chantry for safety. The emissary from the Architect did not last long and died after the second group of guards were rescued. No real loss, Caelyra thought.
After rescuing everyone they could in the city, they headed to the Chantry themselves to take a quick breather before continuing their sweep.
Suddenly, a man burst through the doors and yelled that the darkspawn were coming through the Inn, they were still getting into the city.
Caelyra paled. The old smuggler's den in the city had led up through the tavern... that's where they were getting through. They quickly made for the tavern.
Outside of the chantry they got beset upon by more of the so-called 'Children', the worst darkspawn Caelyra had ever encountered. They fought through them and entered the inn where even more of the terrible creatures lurked.
These ones were directed by a darkspawn general the likes of which she hadn't seen since Denerim. They took him down as fast as they could so he couldn't command any more creatures.
They swept through the enemies in the tavern and down in the smuggler's den where there were more generals. Could the so-called Mother truly be this powerful? To command an army not unlike an archedemon?
It was a frightening thought. The blight was over, but this was the first time anything like this had ever happened. As far as Caelyra knew anyway.
As they emerged on the other side of the smugglers den and back into the city outskirts, another general appeared this time flanked by a great armoured ogre. And the city guards watched and cheered as Caelyra and her group brought the beasts down.
At first worried about having a Grey Warden as their Arl, they were very happy now.
Caelyra's captain of the guard approached and congratulated her on the battle well won. The darkspawn were gone and by some miracle only a few of the survivors had been plagued with the blight. The city had survived.
Now they must take the fight to the Mother and end this.
As they walked out of the city, the survivors lined the street and cheered, thanking them for saving them. Caelyra was pleased. Despite the guard's plea to burn the city and the darkspawn within it, they had managed to save quite a few people and the city still stood tall and proud. It had been a dangerous decision, but it had paid off.
As they made their way to the Mother's lair, Anders and Justice were arguing nearly the entire way. Justice was demanding that Anders stand up for the mages and give them the same freedom that he himself had found, to allow the mages of the world justice. Anders didn't particularly want to put his neck on the chantry's chopping block and kept telling Justice to mind his own business and welcome to the real world.
Caelyra was almost grateful to at last come across darkspawn fighting one another. They could get back to fighting these creatures instead of listening to man vs. spirit.
Although some of these darkspawn were clearly the Architect's forces fighting against the Mother's, they were all enemies and Caelyra and her group slew them all as they passed through this area made of dragon bone.
A nearby scrap of paper, weathered by age, suggested that this was where dragons went when they were nearing the end of their natural cycle.
The scrap of paper soon proved correct when, as they were about to leap upon a group of darkspawn, a dragon leapt upon the creatures first.
The darkspawn damaged the dragon a little, but not enough. It was a full fight to the death as they surrounded the dragon and shot magic and arrows at it and slashed it with swords and daggers.
Finally it lay dead, its bones one day to be one with the bones that already surrounded it, and they could continue on to the Mother's lair.
More and more of the 'Children' came at them and tried to overwhelm them, but they fought against the creatures well as they traversed the old ruins that seemed to lead to the Mother.
Anders said that the ruins looked Tevinter... Caelyra didn't know of any Tevinters that had been in this region. Whatever history this place may have had had been lost to them.
As the descended further through the ruins, the Architect suddenly appeared. He bade them lower their weapons and allow him to speak to them. Caelyra allowed it... for now.
Apparently he had sent a few of his sentient darkspawn to Vigil's Keep to seek aid from the Grey Wardens, but they had attacked. Of course he should've seen that it would've looked like an attack, but humanity's intentions were strange.
He was seeking aid because he thought he had found a way to end the Blights. The Blights were taxing on both his kind and her own and they needed to end. To end them, he had created his own Joining ritual that used Grey Warden blood which freed the darkspawn from being mindless beasts and enabled them to think for themselves... only, some had gone mad, including his first creation that now called herself the Mother.
Caelyra couldn't trust a darkspawn but neither could she ignore a possible way to defeat the Blight forever. Anders and Justice were both concerned; they had come to destroy the darkspawn, not make deals with them.
Ultimately though, Caelyra thought it best to allow the Architect to continue his work. An end to all future Blights... it would be a wonderful thing, if he could truly perfect his own version of the Joining. Otherwise they'd be facing more 'Mothers'.
Taking leave of the Architect, they proceeded to the next area of the ruins; an area that led them straight to The Mother. A disgusting Broodmother larger than any other she had seen, and with more tentacles. It was most disturbing.
The Mother whipped her tentacles back and forth, but unlike every other broodmother Caelyra had killed she didn't call forth more darkspawn, or her Children, it was Caelyra and her group versus the Mother and her tentacles.
After a long battle of getting smacked around by tentacles and vomited on by the Mother's bile, the creature at last lay dead. No more Children would be born, and hopefully that would be the end of this darkspawn faction battle that had imposed itself upon the people of Amaranthine.
Confident that they had no more to worry about for the time being, Caelyra took her group back to Vigil's Keep which had miraculously survived the battle unscathed.
Both the city and the Keep remained standing despite the odds, the Mother lay dead, the Architect had retreated, the darkspawn were no longer of any current threat and now she had a lot of paperwork to do to inform the Grey Wardens elsewhere of what had happened here.
Ugh. Paperwork.
Until next time! ⚔️🐲
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 