In-Character Gaming Logs

Sometimes I enjoy keeping a log or journal as the character I'm playing in a given video game. This blog is where I'll be posting them, because why the heck not. Interaction will be seen as an excuse for RP; you have been warned >w>

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 16 - Three Years Later

The three years between our journey to the Deep Roads and the trouble with the Qunari finally coming to a head aren’t really much to speak of. The expedition had certainly helped me make a name for myself, as I mentioned before, and I found additional work as needed to ensure the proceeds of the expedition wouldn’t run out. On top of that, owning half of the Bone Pit helped to further ensure Mother would want for nothing. I’d already bought back her ancestral home – mine too, technically, I suppose – but still; with Bethany gone with the Grey Wardens, Mother had become my primary concern...particularly as Fenris was more than capable of fending for himself.

For anyone trying to keep track, I spent one year working for Athenril, then a good portion of another year saving the fifty sovereigns for the expedition, and then three more years have passed, leading us to my fifth year in Kirkwall.

Seems like it should be longer, doesn’t it? But everything has a habit of happening all at once. This year would prove to be no exception, and it began with the viscount summoning me to inform me that the Arishok had requested me by name. They’d been in the city for years now with no sign of leaving, and tensions had become very high indeed, but I had apparently made an impression on him which meant I was now a pawn in that particular game.

In this particular case – the first of far too many, as it turned out – there had been a theft. Another theft, I should say, as I learned later on that it was a theft that had left the Qunari stuck here in Kirkwall to begin with, but that’s not important to this part of the story. Not yet, anyway.

The Arishok had called me because I was, to him, one of the incredibly few in Kirkwall who was worth even speaking to, let alone dealing with. Impressive, considering we’d only met once before, under less than favorable circumstances, but apparently it was enough for him to do me the ‘courtesy’, as he called it, of informing me of the theft. He’d set a trap – just for whom I have no idea; I didn’t ask and he was never much for details – and a thief fell for it. The target had been the recipe for gaatlok, the Qunari explosive powder, but what had actually been stolen was far worse: the recipe for a lethal poison gas.

Given that a certain dwarf had been far too interested in the gaatlok for anyone’s good, the Arishok was fairly certain Javaris was behind this theft and saw fit to warn me – not Kirkwall, not the viscount; me – about the theft. Which made very little sense until he pointed out that someone who had no idea what they actually had, who had intended to steal the blasting powder, might not think about or care that they had made a mistake until they’d made enough of it to kill an entire section of the city.

Tracking down Javaris was annoying but not difficult; he had few friends and plenty of enemies, and on top of that had apparently skipped out on his debts to the Coterie. One of their barkers pointed me in his direction, though when we found him he denied any involvement. An elf had stolen the recipe, so he said, and intended on framing him for it and for the result, which was why he’d fled. That and being terrified of assassins on his heels. I let him go; he wasn’t my concern, not with a renegade elf potentially loose in the city with poison gas.

By the time I found her the gas had already been used, filling an entire section of Lowtown. Most of the locals had fled, but some...well. Poison gas works quick, and if you’re older or already sick or too young, well. Some simply didn’t have a chance. The elf responsible was angry about some of her people actually converting to the Qun. Personally I can’t see the attraction, but lost souls are always drawn to something that might give them some kind of purpose, and given their cultural history I can’t say I’m too surprised that elves might be particularly vulnerable to that. Especially those stuck in Darktown, who don’t even have the community of the alienage to rely on.

Her target hadn’t been the townsfolk, though; not really. They’d simply been what a general might call ‘necessary casualties’, a means to an end, which – of course – was to force action against the Qunari. With the true culprit revealed, all-out war in the city was staved off for a time.

But only for a time. No sooner had I returned with the news than the viscount revealed more trouble: a Qunari delegation had disappeared essentially from right off his doorstep.

Honestly, Kirkwall attracts trouble like a stray mabari does fleas.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 15 - Escaping the Deep Roads

To say that Varric was angry is an understatement; it takes more than anger, generally, to swear to kill a family member and mean it, and I’m fairly sure he did mean it in those moments. We were left on our own, with what few supplies we had on us, to try and find a way back to the surface before we starved to death or met our end on darkspawn blades.

As I look at that sentence it sounds like an exaggeration, but I promise you it wasn’t. And we weren’t just fighting darkspawn on our way out, either; there were shades and spirits trying to stop us, and golems, and strange beings made of rock that had no other name but ‘the profane’...and that was given to them by a demon who’d been drawn to their hunger. Whatever they had been before, they weren’t now, and all of them were trying to kill us.

The demon tried to bargain with us, offering a way out in return for telling us where the key to the door we wanted was kept. A tempting offer, if one could trust a demon. But, since you never can, I refused outright. Dealing with demons never ends well for anyone. Killing the thing wasn’t easy, either, but it was a far better option. Besides, we found the key anyway, after killing a huge version of the profane that nearly left me a bloody smear on the stone. Varric called the thing a rock wraith, but he said they weren’t supposed to be real. Perhaps that’s what the profane were, long ago. Maybe that ancient thaig belonged to them, and not to the dwarves. Who knows? All I know is that no one is ever going to find out, because none of us have any intention of ever telling anyone where that damned place is. Best if it’s forgotten. Especially after what happened.

Not all of us made it out in one piece, though. Going back home alone was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, second only to telling Mother what happened to Bethany. She’d become tainted down there. The blasted darkspawn, or just something in the air, who can say? But she didn’t say anything, not until we were almost out and she was almost beyond saving. Typical of her, honestly, but Andraste’s ass, I was terrified I would have to kill my sister just like I had Ser Wesley.

Thank the Maker for Anders.

If he hadn’t been there, I really would have had to tell Mother that I’d led my little sister to her death. But the Wardens Anders stole the maps from had been planning their own expedition into the Deep Roads, which meant he knew roughly where to find them; if we could make it in time, Bethany might be saved by becoming a Warden herself. Knowing what I do now, ‘saved’ is a very relative term, but at the time I didn’t care; as long as it kept my sister alive anything was worth the risk.

We did find the Wardens, fortunately, and though it took some convincing they agreed to let Bethany undergo the Joining. It meant I lost my sister, as there would be no contact between us for months – blazing fire, it was months before I learned she had passed the Joining and still lived! - but it was the only way. After that we left the Deep Roads and made it back to Kirkwall. I went home, Anders went back to his clinic, and Varric set out to find whatever the hell had become of Bartrand.

Fortunately for all of us, we didn’t return empty handed; on our way out we’d stumbled across the thaig’s vault. Chests full of gold and other – safer, far more mundane – treasures that stood us in very good stead indeed when we got back. I was able to move Mother and myself out of Uncle Gamlen’s hovel house finally, and into a manor in Hightown. Things were starting to finally look up for us.

Honestly, I probably should have known it wouldn’t last.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 14 - Into the Deep Roads

About this time I had finally saved up the fifty sovereigns needed to finance Bartrand’s expedition. He was less than enthusiastic until I produced the coin in question, and even warmed up a bit when I produced the maps I’d gotten from Anders to get us down there, but then again he never struck me as all that personable a dwarf; clearly Varric got all the charm in the family. With my partnership firm, the last few preparations were made and we made ready to depart.

Mother was upset by my taking Bethany with me. She still hadn’t fully recovered from losing Carver during our flight from Ferelden, and with both of us going all she’d have left for company was Uncle Gamlen. I couldn’t blame her for being upset, but Bethany was – and remains – one of the best and most powerful mages I know. With her and Anders – as a former Warden, his knowledge and experience would be invaluable in the Deep Roads – I felt we’d do just fine. Aveline promised to look in on Mother while we were gone, too, and Fenris agreed to keep an eye on her, just to make sure she stayed safe. We were to be gone for weeks, after all.

There’s not much to tell about the journey to the Deep Roads; travel never makes for good storytelling, even Varric will tell you that. The Roads themselves, though...I’d never seen anything like them. Calling them ‘roads’ doesn’t even begin to do them justice, and calling them ‘tunnels’ is an insult. They’re incredible, vast and winding, with arching roofs painstakingly carved and roads paved so cunningly you’d swear they were all just one block of stone, even the bridges. And they’re not as dark as I thought they would be, either; I was prepared to be walking through pitch blackness by the way Varric kept talking – he’s a surfacer dwarf through and through, born and raised under the sun – but the old lamps the dwarves built still work in many places, and then there’s the glow of the lava rivers that keep the place warm. Almost too warm, sometimes.

The first hitch came when one of our scouts reported back that there was a cave-in blocking the path, and the side tunnels were too dangerous to try finding a way around it. That put Bartrand in a fine temper, I can tell you, but he wasn’t about to just turn around now. So I volunteered to go on ahead; it was part of why Varric enlisted my help to begin with, after all.

Off we went, Bethany and me and Anders and Varric. Just the four of us against roving bands of darkspawn, huge spiders – the less said of them the better, thank you very much – and even a dragon and its spawn. Nothing overly difficult, but certainly more than our scouts could have handled. We found a way around the cave-in – which was less a cave-in and more a bridge that said cave-in had knocked into a lake of lava below – and found...

Well.

What we found, ultimately, was something that should never have been discovered, though we had no way of knowing that then.

It was an ancient thaig, so old that there were none of the usual traces of dwarvish culture about it. No statues of Paragons, no runes...there were markings, and odd drawings, but nothing that we could read or decipher. Perhaps if we had, we would have realized what we were about to walk into, but there was nothing to hint about that.

Nothing except the lyrium nearby. Maybe we should have known then that something was strange. All of the lyrium we’d passed before had been glowing a pale blue, the same glow that sometimes surrounds Bethany when she works spells, but the stuff around this thaig was red. Blood red. It was unsettling, to say the least.

I think Bartrand was the only one who wasn’t bothered by any of it. His mind was only on taking whatever he thought he could make a profit from. That would end up being his downfall, and it was very nearly ours.

After we’d set camp in this ancient thaig we went exploring. There was a room, surrounded by veins of red lyrium, with an idol sitting on an altar in its center. I’d never seen anything like it before, none of us had; it looked like it was carved from pure lyrium. The red stuff, not the blue. It had an unsettling look about it, and Anders refused to touch it. We all should have paid more attention to that, I think, but we didn’t. We should have paid attention to the change in Bartrand, too, but none of us even noticed until it was far too late.

Varric called his brother’s attention to the idol as I grabbed the thing. It felt...wrong, and I should have smashed it right then and there; if I had, maybe things would have gone differently, who can say? But I didn’t. I tossed it to Bartrand to put with the rest of the loot, and the little bastard immediately left and locked us in that room. All four of us, Varric included. His greed would have left us to die down there, had we not found our own way out.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 13 - Isabela

Meeting Isabela was one of the more interesting minor incidents that year. A happenstance meeting at the Hanged Man when I watched her give a handful of thugs a seeing-to which led to a conversation in which she asked me to be her backup in a duel she was sure was going to go sideways. Apparently I simply have a trustworthy face. That or I looked interesting enough for her to risk. Regardless, I agreed to meet her in Hightown that night.

The rest of the day was spent trying to find the templar Emeric; finding anyone in Darktown is difficult, even though a templar in full armor ought to stand out like elfroot in the Deep Roads. When I did find him he was investigating a series of disappearances like Ninette’s, including that of a mage called Mharen. He felt there might be foul play involved, as all the women had had a mystery suitor, and all of them had disappeared after being sent a bunch of lilies, but he hadn’t found much of anything else. He turned the investigation, such as it was, over to me, along with his notes, which were so disjointed and difficult to follow that they weren’t much use but for one last scrawl about a foundry in Lowtown where Mharen’s trail ended.

As I had some time before the planned meeting with Isabela I stopped by the foundry that night. Emeric was right that something was off about it, considering I found demons and shades, and a mage who fled before I could get a good look at him. I also, sadly, found a wedding ring that turned out to be Ninette’s – still on her hand – and a bag full of what looked like concerningly fresh bones. Emeric was right about foul play, and Aveline promised she’d have the guard look into it properly. Ghyslain, absolute treasure of a man that he was – and please note the sarcasm there – couldn’t shove the ring back into my hands fast enough when I told him how I’d found it. Bastard was more concerned about appearances than the murder of his wife; small wonder his in-laws were suspicious of him.

But back to Isabela. I met her in Hightown at the appointed time, but her opponent didn’t show up. He’d sent a proxy in his stead, who was less interested in niceties than in slitting our throats, but she’d been dumb enough to keep a note from the man that told us where he was: hiding in the Chantry. I had a sinking feeling I’d end up shedding blood in there again when Isabela stormed off for the doors.

I was right.

The meeting hardly went well. Apparently Hayder – her would-be opponent – was hunting her for someone else called Castillon, trying to get a relic back that she’d lost. The same relic the thugs back in the Hanged Man had been looking for and failed to find for her. That in turn, I learned later, was meant to be a form of repayment for Isabela losing – or, as is more likely I think, ‘losing’ – a shipment of slaves Castillon was sending to Tevinter. Good for her, I say.

Hayder ultimately lost the duel he’d been trying to hide from, which meant Castillon would have to wait a while longer to hear any news and which gave Isabela some time to find the relic she was looking for. A difficult task, since she didn’t even know what it was, but I promised to help her get it back once she learned where it was. And she decided to keep tagging along with me in the meantime. One more pair of hands is always useful.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 12 - Trouble in the Templars

On my way to visit Fenris at his new home, not too long after the Bone Pit, I overheard a young woman begging for news of her brother. He was a templar recruit called Keran, and he’d gone missing, and the templars themselves were apparently either unconcerned or just choosing not to do anything about it. I couldn’t not offer to help; at the end of the day, family is all you have, isn’t it? Besides, she seemed convinced that Knight-Commander Meredith had something to do with it, and if the Knight-Commander was having recruits vanish then someone needed to look into it. So I did.

There wasn’t much to find at first; Keran’s fellow recruits were under orders not to discuss the disappearances. Yes, multiple, because he wasn’t the first or the only, just the latest. The other recruits spoke of rumors about a new initiation ritual to test your mettle – or your loyalty, or your faith; the thought was that Meredith only wanted templars who would follow her without question and not hesitated to ‘do what must be done’, which undoubtedly meant ‘kill mages or force them into Tranquility – but no one knew anything solid other than those recruits who’d gone recently hadn’t come back. Except for Wilmod, who’d returned and then immediately left for the coast to ‘clear his head’. As he’d be the likeliest one to know where Keran was, we went to go find him.

Good thing, too. By the time we did catch up to him, so had another templar. We walked into Wilmod’s camp in time to see Knight-Captain Cullen beat the boy and hold him at swordpoint while interrogating him. I stepped in at that point – templar or no, that kind of treatment is inhumane – but…

Well.

I’m not sure how to describe what happened next, other than Wilmod changed. Anders has a spirit inside him and still looks and acts human, but Wilmod...wasn’t human, there at the end. He stepped back and turned into what looked like a shade, summoned others, and attacked. The battle was over fairly quickly, but I could see the knight-captain looked more than a little pale. Made sense, once he told us he’d come from Ferelden’s Circle. I heard what happened there, the massacre and the blood mages. If he survived that...well, small wonder he has as dim a view of mages as Fenris does. They’ve both seen the worst magic can do to men. I just wish they’d realize that’s not all there is to it and that by and large most mages just want to be left alone, same as anyone else.

But that’s beside the point here.

Cullen had followed Wilmod out here because the boy had been acting oddly and he’d wanted to know why. He claimed no knowledge of a new initiation ritual – there’s a vigil, apparently, but the most dangerous part about that is the risk of falling asleep – and denied any possibility of Meredith being involved, but that left me without any further lead as to Keran’s whereabouts.

Well. Except one, provided by Cullen. Apparently Keran and his friends had spent no small amount of time at the Blooming Rose – convenient, as I had also met a man who was seeking for news of his wife, who’d spent quite some time there herself. One visit, two investigations. Suited me fine.

The Blooming Rose, for those who don’t know, is a house of, shall we say, negotiable affection. To put it more plainly, it’s a brothel. The missing wife of Ghyslain de Carrac had favored an elven man who had no more information than I. Jethann simply assumed Ninette had left her husband, though he did mention a templar called Emeric had been asking after her. I noted that for future reference and then carried on to find out just who had been the last person to see Keren and his friends – particularly Wilmod, as he was the only one of the group who’d come back.

Viveka, one of the waitresses, took a little convincing but checked the Rose’s books to tell us that Keran and his friends – and Wilmod in particular – had favored the services of a woman called Idunna. The meeting with her was...difficult. She was a blood mage, I discovered later, but she wove no obvious magic while still managing to ensnare her targets, of which I was almost one. If it hadn’t been for Bethany I wouldn’t be alive to write this book. I still have the occasional nightmare about it.

Ultimately she confessed, both to the blood magic and to sending Keran and the others to someone called Tarohne, down in Darktown. I showed her what mercy I could – a swift death. Sending her to the templars would have resulted in the same anyway, or in her being made immediately Tranquil.

Tracking down Tarohne wasn’t difficult, thanks to Idunna’s information, though the sheer amount of demons we had to fight through to get to her was ridiculous. Tarohne herself was stark mad, ranting about trying to recreate the ancient Imperium where mages would rule rather than serve. As if that would solve anything. The one saving grace was that Fenris hadn’t come along, or I don’t know how badly he would have reacted to that.

As it was, Tarohne’s designs died with her and Keran was released from her captivity. Anders, having more knowledge about such things than I, tested him to be sure he didn’t have a demon riding him in secret and, once the test had been passed, we took him back to the Gallows.

Cullen was, naturally, less than happy to learn that blood magic was involved at all, though I could see the relief in his eyes when I told him the mages in question had been dealt with. He also showed surprising leniency where Keran was concerned, taking my word that the boy hadn’t been possessed and was no danger to anyone. It at least let Keran keep his position as a templar, though Cullen was firm that the boy would have to wait ten years before becoming eligible for full knighthood. Fair enough, and far better than I’d hoped when I suggested Keran be allowed to keep his post.

Maybe there’s hope for the Knight-Captain yet.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 11 - The Bone Pit

While we were outside the city, it seemed a good time to deal with some other business, some of it rather pressing. When I last visited Aveline at the viscount’s palace, I overheard some trouble between a mercenary leader and the seneschal, regarding the terms of a reward for finding the viscount’s missing son; I asked Bethany to look into that, as the mercenary in question seemed far less interested in Saemus’s safety than she did claiming the loot, considering Saemus was reportedly taken by a rogue Qunari.

On top of that, one of the city magistrates had flagged me down in Hightown to demand request my assistance in recapturing an escaped criminal who’d taken up residence in some ruins outside the city, and then there was the trouble with the Bone Pit, the old mine run by that ass Hubert that was one of the few places Fereldan refugees could find work until things had apparently gone wrong.

Honestly, no one in this city could solve their own problems. It was a recurring theme.

Having the gratitude of a magistrate seemed a good thing, and having the gratitude of the viscount was even better, and as to helping my fellow countrymen, that one goes without saying.

We found Saemus first, and just in the nick of time. The Winters had found him first and killed the qunari he was with, which had upset the boy rather badly.

Maker, I call him a boy, he was probably about my age, or Bethany’s at youngest. Anyway.

The Winters’ leader would likely have turned her steel on him had we not stepped in, given his anger and his refusal to come quietly. It unfortunately turned into something of a bloodbath, since we had to take on basically the entire company, but it kept Saemus unharmed and, quite honestly, I can’t say the world isn’t better off without mercenaries like those anyway. Saemus was still upset by his friend’s death – he called him Ashaad; I have to wonder what sort of title that is, given my own brief dealings with the Qunari – but at least agreed to return with us.

It hadn’t been my intention to return to the city so quickly, but I wasn’t about to go dragging the viscount’s son into more needless danger. Better to deliver the boy, claim the reward, and go, so that’s exactly what I did. None too soon, too, considering as I left Saemus and his father were falling into what was clearly a common argument for them regarding the Qunari. As far as I was concerned then, that particular problem was none of my affair.

Maker, how wrong I was.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I still had a criminal to find and a mine to investigate. The criminal came first. When we reached the ruins there were guards outside, and one incredibly angry elf. The magistrate had neglected to tell me the criminal was a serial killer who preyed on elven children. And the fact that he had escaped meant that he’d been caught before, but the elf who spoke to me said this man had killed dozens of children with nothing ever done about it. The guard on duty, meanwhile, told me that the magistrate had given orders that the criminal was to be caught and brought back alive and, if possible unharmed.

That didn’t sit too well with Fenris. Or with me, for that matter. And since the guards didn’t have the balls to actually go into the ruins after him, I felt reasonably confident in ignoring them.

There were spirits – well, demons – in the ruins, and a handful of bandits, but we also found the criminal’s latest victim...and we found her alive, and apparently unhurt. She insisted that he wasn’t to blame, that he’d told her it was demons making him do these things, and begged us not to kill him. I just sent her out to her father.

The criminal – Kelder – turned out, when we finally found him, to be a whining, almost broken husk of a man rather than the hardened killer I’d been expecting. He also turned out to be the magistrate’s son, which explained quite a lot, and told me himself that he couldn’t stop doing what he did. Elven children were, apparently, too perfect and too beautiful, and so the demons insisted he do things to them, and then kill them when they started crying. He’d also been tested by the Chantry, he said, who’d told him there were no demons, but he swore they were wrong.

He also asked me to kill him, to stop both him and the demons in his head.

I obliged.

The magistrate was doubtless none too pleased when he found out, but I never heard a thing from him again and, quite frankly, I couldn’t care less.

The Bone Pit was its own problem. The place has a foreboding feeling to it; Fenris said it was cursed and should be left alone just about the second we set foot there, and I couldn’t help agreeing with him. It was deserted, bodies scattered here and there, some looking gnawed-upon and half-eaten. The cause became clear fairly quickly once we entered the mine tunnels, though:

Dragons.

Small ones, mostly, but enough to be a major problem for simple miners unused to actual combat. We cleared them out as we went, and even found a survivor who warned us of a bigger dragon at the end of the tunnels. That one had to be dealt with too, or the things would just keep breeding like nugs, but we got the place safe again. Hubert was pleased to hear that; pleased enough to offer me half-ownership of the mine, which was...surprising, but not an opportunity I was going to pass up. Not with the way he was talking about the Fereldans under his employ, like they were no better than beasts of burden, stupid and expendable and easily replaced. At least with me in the picture the poor sods would have an advocate.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 10 - The Starkhaven Mages

Not long after the incident at the Chantry – which, thankfully, I was never fully connected to – Ser Thrask reached out to me for help. A group of mages from the Starkhaven Circle had been on their way to Kirkwall when they managed to duck their templar escort and flee. Given Starkhaven’s Circle had burned to the ground, thereby destroying the mages’ phylacteries, tracking them was proving difficult.

Unsurprising for a group that relies on being able to track a mage by magic rather than by mundane methods, but I digress.

Thrask is, for a templar, a decent enough man, and he wanted to avoid undue bloodshed. If the mages would surrender before the other templars – and Ser Karras in particular – arrived, we had the chance to do just that. Naturally a templar asking for their surrender was not going to go well, but given my previous actions where mages had been concerned he felt he could trust me with the job. I certainly wasn’t keen on sending mages to the Kirkwall Circle given everything I’d learned about it at that point, but better that than a bloodbath...and having a templar on good terms with me could only help keep my sister safe.

So we ventured into the caves the mages had been tracked to, only to discover the place was full of the un-quiet dead. One young mage nearly ran into us as he tried to bolt out of the caves entirely; according to him Decimus – their leader – had turned to blood magic and was raising the dead.

So much for avoiding bloodshed.

But this boy wanted nothing to do with that and genuinely wanted to go to the Circle, so we let him pass with instructions to surrender himself to Ser Thrask outside while we pressed on. Decimus, when we found him, didn’t even give us the chance to try reason. He raised more corpses and attacked before we could say more than ‘hello’, though doubtless when Varric tells this story he’ll be throwing in more witty repartee than actually happened. Regardless, when the dust settled no few mages – including Decimus himself – were dead. One survivor, Decimus’s apparent lover, was all set to blame us for his death before I pointed that he had started the fight and all we had come to do was talk.

The woman was, unsurprisingly, reluctant to go back to any Circle, especially after one of their own turned to blood magic; most of them would be tarred with that same brush, doomed to Tranquility or death even if they did surrender. The boy earlier had wanted to go back, but the rest of them – those who hadn’t followed Decimus’s lead, anyway – had a chance few Circle mages get. The only wrinkle was Ser Thrask, waiting outside.

Honestly, had it been any other templar then, I might have actually considered the request to kill him and let the mages go, but Thrask was too decent a man, and too crucial. As strict as Kirkwall’s Circle was, and as harsh as its templars were, they needed someone like Thrask as a voice of moderation and reason.

Besides. I genuinely liked the man.

So I offered another way. We’d tell the templars that the mages had all died, which would give them the additional bonus of no one bothering to look for the dead...hopefully, at any rate. And, thanks to Varric’s silver tongue, the templars bought it. Or at least Ser Karras did; Ser Thrask undoubtedly knew the story was a crock of shit, given Varric led with naming me as a templar working directly with the Knight-Commander, but even if he knew he didn’t say anything.

As I said. A decent man.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 9 - Anders

Not long after sending Feynriel to the Dalish, I met with Varric in the Hanged Man. There was another wrinkle in the expedition plans, it seemed: while Bartrand knew where he was going once we got to the Deep Roads, getting to the Deep Roads was another matter entirely. Outside of the dwarves, no one has any reason to be down there except the Grey Wardens, and there weren’t exactly any Wardens in Kirkwall to ask. Except one. Varric had heard rumor of a retired Grey Warden who might have some maps we could use, but tracking him down wasn’t going to be all that easy.

Unusually, this was one area where my Fereldan heritage came in useful for once. The rumors led us to a Fereldan goods and charity shop, though Lirani – the proprietress – was none too happy about us asking about ‘the healer’, as they called him. I don’t much blame her; he tended the sick, delivered children, cared for the injured, and from what I heard he never asked for payment. A little convincing, plus a decent donation to the charity box, got me a clue as to how to find him, though, and down into Darktown we went.

I wasn’t expecting the healer to be a mage. That was my first surprise. Anders would turn out to be full of them.

He wasn’t all that eager to help us, either, but the barter system has never failed before and he was willing to offer an exchange of services: we help him get a friend out of the Circle, and he’d let us make use of his maps. The Kirkwall Circle was, as I was learning, one of the most restrictive in all of Thedas, and Knight-Commander Meredith was doing nothing to help that; if anything, she was making it worse. Anders’ friend, Karl, wanted out, and who could blame him? The only wrinkle was that Anders guessed the templars knew at least something about the coming escape, which meant he needed backup and he needed to move fast.

Even so, he was still too slow.

When we got to the Chantry at the appointed hour we found Karl, certainly, but the poor man had already been made Tranquil. Cut off from the Fade, from dreams, from emotion...Bethany always said it was a fate worse than death, and after seeing Karl I can understand why. There was no emotion in his voice, no inflection, no depth to his eyes...how does anyone look at the Tranquil and not shudder? And then on top of that, he’d brought templars with him, doubtless due to instruction to help capture the apostate Anders.

The last thing I wanted that night was to shed blood in the Chantry, of all places, but what choice did we have if we wanted to save our skins? But that was when we got our second surprise with Anders. He suddenly glowed blue, knocked the templars back with some sort of magic blast, and then fought like a man possessed...which, technically, he is. Sort of. I think.

I found out later that he had invited a spirit of Justice into himself, a spirit he’d met in Amaranthine, back in Ferelden. The spirit had become stuck in our world, and I don’t suppose they can last long here without a body. Anders offered his body, rather than that of a corpse, but possessing a living man is different; from what he tells me, not even he can tell where he ends and Justice begins, and on top of that the spirit has changed since being inside him, becoming a spirit of vengeance rather than justice.

Well, I suppose justice mixed with anger would become vengeance. And Anders has carried anger about the treatment of mages for far longer than I’ve known him; that kind of emotion doesn’t just go away, no matter what a benevolent spirit might think itself capable of.

The other misfortune is that, when Justice burst forth, it renewed Karl’s connection to the Fade for just a moment. For just long enough for him to beg for death rather than go back to the emptiness of Tranquility. Poor sod. And poor Anders, losing his friend twice in one night. That weighed on him for a long time. Probably still does.

When we got back to his clinic, though, Anders kept his word and gave us the maps. Even agreed to come along with us, if we wanted. Former or no, he was still a Grey Warden; having one of those with us would absolutely prove useful in the Deep Roads. And it did, but we’ll get there when we get there.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 8 - Wayward Son

Keeping my word to Merrill I stopped by the alienage again, after the business with Fenris, to visit her. She seemed to be settling in about as well as anyone could expect, and there really isn’t much to tell about our conversations. It was what I overheard near the great tree that is important here. A templar, Ser Thrask – a rare voice of reason amongst the Kirkwall ranks – was talking to an elven woman about her son. The boy was a mage, and she’d kept him secret from the templars until things got out of hand. Thrask was concerned for the boy but there was little enough he could do unless the lad surrendered willingly – which, I know from my own family, is as likely as gold raining from the sky.

My heart went out to his mother, though. Arianni, her name was. Her boy Feynriel was...well, I hesitate to call him an accident for several reasons, but he’s half human and his father wanted nothing to do with him. Or his mother, apparently. Her clan didn’t want him, either – she was Dalish – and so she settled in Kirkwall to raise her son alone. And now she was about to lose him, either to the Circle or to whatever demons were plaguing his dreams and causing all the concern.

The boy’s father – a merchant called Vincenzo – cared enough for his son to at least try to help him; he’d sent him to a former templar called Samson, who apparently was somewhat known to help runaway mages. Samson, when we found him, was a wreck of a man...templars, it seems, are all but forced to become addicted to lyrium, as drinking that is what lets them combat mages head on. I’m honestly not sure what to think about that, but I know I hate it. How many of their recruits know, I wonder, what they’re truly signing on for? Do they warn any of them about the lyrium? About how the Chantry controls the supply? What happens to a templar who retires?

All these questions I never thought I’d ask. But I digress.

Samson gave us another lead, directing us to a ship captain he’d sent the boy to; Feynriel had no coin, and Samson wouldn’t help without payment. Arguably fortunate, considering how things turned out. The captain was working with slavers; it was their private dock Samson had sent the boy to, though I doubt he knew the truth of it. But we were too late; Feynriel was already gone, and the girl who was there...in her panic and anger she...changed, I can only assume into an abomination, and to defend ourselves we had to kill her as well as the slavers. Poor lass. Ser Thrask was all but heartbroken when he found out; she’d left him a farewell letter. He’d been trying to keep his own daughter safe from the Circle. As I said, a rare voice of reason among Kirkwall’s templars.

Leaving the docks we tracked down the captain Samson had mentioned. He’ll be selling no more slaves, I can guarantee that. Even had Fenris not been at my side, I will not stand by and let anyone profit on the suffering of others.

It seems when slavery is involved, even Fenris’s hatred of mages cools somewhat.

We had yet to find Feynriel, though. Fortunately Fenris has a way of making people talkative, so Danzig at least gave us the last piece of the trail to follow before he died. None too soon, either; we barely made it before the poor lad was carted off to Tevinter. By rights I probably should have sent him home once the dust had settled, but doing that would mean sending him right into the Circle, and after spending all my life keeping Bethany out of there how could I send someone to it? The boy needed help, though; he was hearing voices in his sleep, having nightmares – bad ones – and it likely was only a matter of time before something went wrong. Even he could see that, which was why he’d run away. He was trying to reach the Dalish, in the hopes that his mother’s people could help him.

Given that I’d already had some small dealings with Marethari, I offered to use what influence I might have and sent him to the clan outside Kirkwall. Not his mother’s clan, no doubt, but hopefully their keeper will take pity on a boy. Arianni seemed relieved when I told her the news. Ser Thrask was, too; not exactly pleased, of course, but at least relieved the boy might get some instruction and help.

Besides, while I never even hinted at being willing to do so, I did know of Thrask’s own secret; I don’t think he wanted to press his luck where my silence was concerned. I wouldn’t have dreamed of revealing it to anyone back then, but I’m not complaining if it helped me.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 7 - Fenris

In trying to earn the coin for that blasted expedition I’d even reached back out to Athenril. My year with her was up, and I was all the happier for it, but I needed to join that expedition if I was going to have even the slightest chance of keeping Bethany safe, so I could hardly afford to be too picky. She put me in contact with a dwarf called Anso, who had a job that needed doing and needed doing quietly.

Anso, in turn, asked me to help him retrieve some stolen property of his. A smuggling deal gone wrong, or so I believed at the time; the hints he dropped made it sound like he was trying to smuggle lyrium to the templars beneath everyone’s noses. I agreed to at least take a look and ventured into the alienage to investigate the house he mentioned.

Walked right into an ambush.

I wasn’t who they were expecting to find, but they didn’t care; they’d had orders to kill anyone who went into that particular house. Unfortunately for them, I don’t kill easy. It was as I started to leave that their captain turned up, attempting to call reinforcements. Unluckily for him, I turned out to have reinforcements of my own. Not that I was aware of them, of course; I had been the bait in a counter-trap, and it had worked.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that first sight of Fenris. It would be hard to; seeing someone shove their hand straight through a man’s chest, armor and all, tends to stick in the mind. But learning that the fallen men were Tevinter slavers, and that Fenris himself was an escaped slave they were seeking to reclaim, was all the information I needed to forget the fact he’d used me as bait and join his mission willingly.

He thought his former master, Danarius, was still in Kirkwall and wanted help dealing with the man. What could I say but of course? Slavers are some of the lowest beings in the world, trading in flesh and misery, thinking nothing of intense suffering so long as their pockets are well lined.

I, along with Bethany and Varric, met Fenris at his master’s mansion that same night. Danarius, of course, was long gone, though he’d left plenty of shades and demons for us to deal with in his stead. Fenris was upset; he’d been so sure Danarius would remain, that he’d be able to face his former master and have his revenge, that to be denied that fight left him adrift in a way. My heart went out to him.

Not for the last time, either. I think he fascinated me from that very first moment, even with his hatred for mages. Being a slave to a Tevinter magister, I can’t say he doesn’t have the right to hate mages and magic, especially considering what was done to him – having lyrium inscribed into your very skin has to count as some of the worst torture imaginable – while I grew up sympathetic to mages thanks to my father and sister. I’ve spent my life trying to keep Bethany safe from the templars, out of the Circle, and to come against a man who knows nothing but the worst of mages, it was...striking.

When we’d cleared out Danarius’s mansion Fenris took it over. In his words, if Danarius wanted it back, he could come try and claim it himself. I almost wanted him to; I had no doubts even then that Fenris could – and would – hold his own against the man. And he agreed to work with me if I needed him, which...

Well, naturally, I was, am, and will forever remain grateful to him for that. Even if he did never stop giving Bethany sideways looks.

By this time, too, I had almost saved up the fifty sovereigns I would need to join Bartrand’s expedition as a partner. I just needed a handful more.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 6 - Saarebaas

I should mention that while we were looking for Donnic that night in Lowtown we ran across a Chantry sister, Petrice. She was apparently looking to hire some muscle and nearly got herself killed doing so, or at least so it looked at the time. Looking back I’m none too sure...but we’ll get into the whys of that later. The important thing here is that we defended her, whether she needed it or not, and she decided to recruit us – or at least recruit me – instead. As I said earlier, at the time I needed the coin, so I wasn’t in a position to look too closely at the woman hiring me. Especially since what she claimed to want was something that, at the time, I thought was good.

She wanted to help a Qunari mage find his freedom. I didn’t know much about the Qunari or their philosophies then, and I certainly didn’t know or understand how they treated their mages or why, so when she presented the mage, who she called Ketojan, and I saw how he’d been chained and collared, his horns shorn off, even his mouth sewn shut, how could I not want to help? Especially when she told me he was trying to escape. All I could really see was Bethany in such straits. So I ignored most of the warning signs I was seeing from Petrice, how she avoided giving any actual details or information, and agreed to help the mage escape through the sewers.

It was simple enough, really; slip out of the city through the sewers to the coast and turn Ketojan loose. There was no plan after that, and honestly that should have been clue enough for me to turn the job down. Sending anyone out into the coastlands bound and collared like that would have been a death sentence no matter what, but for a renegade Qunari whose people would probably be hunting him down as Tal-Vashoth it would be doubled.

And, sure enough, no sooner had we hit the coast than we ran into trouble. A band of Qunari led by one calling himself Arvaarad – both name and title, apparently – had followed a trail from the other direction to the remains of Ketojan’s company, or karataam, and so we’d run right into them. He called Ketojan ‘Saarebas’, which seems to be their term for any mage at all, and the discussion...did not exactly go well. Especially when he found out that not only was Bethany a mage, she was my sister. I have to wonder what happens to the siblings of Qunari mages, as badly as he took my sharing blood with one. Are they killed or collared too, right alongside the mages?

I didn’t get a chance to ask. He attacked almost instantly, giving us no choice but to defend ourselves. Ketojan – Saarebas – didn’t join in; Arvaarad had done something to him, used some kind of device to freeze him in place. When the battle was over and Arvaarad dead – unfortunate but necessary, considering I rather enjoy breathing – I managed to release him, but even then things didn’t go as I thought they would.

Saarebas never had any intention of living, I think, after his karataam was killed. Something about the Qun had him resigned to his death, even seeking it. That unsettled me then, and it still does now; I can’t imagine not being willing to fight to survive, no matter what, even after everything that’s happened. Accepting death as a possibility in battle is one thing, but going willingly to it? Never.

But he was determined, and it was his choice, so what could I do but watch? He gave me a talisman – a token of honor, I think, as he said I was someone worthy of following – and then he burned himself alive.

I still have that talisman. I doubt I’ll ever sell it.

Sister Petrice was hardly apologetic when we returned. Unsurprising, given we weren’t meant to; she’d set the whole thing up to try and force the Chantry’s and the city’s hand against the Qunari. Because naturally what Kirkwall needed was more unrest and more fighting, since things weren’t hard enough already. She came to Lowtown to recruit because who would believe a common thug?

Not that I’ve ever been a common thug, I like to think I’m rather uncommon, but that’s beside the point. Varric observed as she left that we’d likely be seeing her again. I had to agree with him.

Good thing, too, since he was right, but we’ll get to that later.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 5 - The Ambush

While waiting for the right moment to turn the tables on the supposed ambush we ran into a dwarf called Javaris. The Qunari being in the city had everyone worked up, some with fear but others with opportunity. Javaris had his eye on the blasting powder they’d brought with them, and had decided he was going to make a deal with their Arishok: get rid of the Tal-Vashoth deserters in return for proving his ‘worthiness’ to take possession of the blasting powder.

Naturally, his solution was to find someone else to do the hard part. Namely me. At the time I thought little enough of the Qunari; they were so far down my list of concerns as to barely be a blip, but if the deserters were causing trouble then they needed to be dealt with...plus I still needed coin to invest in Bartrand’s expedition, so I took the job. That was my reasoning for taking several jobs in those days, for better or worse; some worked out, some didn’t.

This one...well, I’ll just tell the tale.

Aveline agreed to lend a hand with Bethany and myself and Varric, going after the deserters along the Wounded Coast. We cleared out their camp and the tunnels they’d taken to live in, but when we reported back to Javaris and the Arishok we learned there hadn’t been any kind of deal at all. Javaris had just decided on his own and made promises he couldn’t keep, which seemed to annoy the Arishok – unsurprising, given how closely the Qunari seem to hold to a very solid concept of honor – and did annoy me. I still got my coin, though; the Arishok forced the dwarf to pay up regardless, so at least part of it worked out. I was in no hurry to go back to the Qunari camp, though.

It wouldn’t be my last encounter with them at that point, either, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Aveline took us back out to Sundermount, as the planned ambush time was getting close. Sure enough, when we got there we were able to turn the tables on a fairly large band of rogues and renegades. Job well done, but reporting back to the guard captain ended up with Aveline getting her arse chewed – loudly – for a good ten minutes. There are few things more awkward than standing outside an office listening to a friend getting yelled at and knowing any attempt to help will just make things worse.

But there was, of course, more to the story than just this. Aveline was clearly stepping on toes, and it turned out the guard whose patrol that was would have walked right into her death; she’d been set to patrol that route alone, as it had been quiet for weeks until the ruckus we made. She also mentioned a satchel that she’d handed off to another guardsman, Donnic, and that it had been heavier than usual. Aveline and I both smelled a set-up, so naturally our next stop was Lowtown to ensure Donnic’s patrol went as quiet as it ought to.

Good thing we did; by the time we reached him that night he was already surrounded. The satchel held government documents, pay rotas...important papers and no small amount of coin, and Donnic had clearly been intended as a sacrificial messenger boy. And, since only the captain could have arranged this, that meant that exposing the subterfuge would publicly embarrass the entire city guard. A sticky spot to be in.

Still, leave it to Aveline not to let that stop her. She’s a woman of solid principles, like very few I’ve known, and I respect her greatly for it. She exposed the captain regardless, and despite his railing about it as they dragged him out, she was rewarded with a promotion. Not an immediate one, of course, but it was made clear that she was to take over as captain of the city guard. I’m fairly sure she was shocked by it, but I wasn’t. Couldn’t have been prouder of her, either. I think Wesley would have been, too, though I didn’t quite dare say so; his loss still pains her greatly.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 4 - Merrill

Heading up to Sundermount to take a look at the ambush site, I took the opportunity to complete the bargain that had gotten us safely out of Ferelden. The Dalish clan was not exactly pleased to see me, but the keeper Marethari was expecting me so they at least let me pass without bloodshed. Just delivering the amulet wasn’t enough, though; Marethari asked me to take it up to an old Dalish cemetery and perform some sort of funeral ritual on it. Well, to be more precise, she asked me to go up there with her First – an apprentice of sorts – and have her First perform the ritual.

And then to take the girl with me when I left. I had no idea why at the time, and the request seemed odd, but I’ve never been one to break a bargain once made so I agreed. That was how I met Merrill.

She was a nervous little thing, uncertain and hesitant and a little scared. Apparently Dalish mothers use humans to frighten their children. Considering how humans have always treated elves, I shouldn’t have been as surprised by this as I was.

She also turned out to be a mage. All keepers are, she told me, which is just one more reason for the clans to stay on the move; the longer they’re in one place, the more likely the templars will cause trouble. That’s a lesson I know well thanks to Father and Bethany. But Merrill wasn’t just a mage; that on its own wouldn’t have been a problem.

She was a blood mage.

And she didn’t seem to care about the risks she was taking. She seemed confident she could handle it; honestly it was the only shred of confidence I really saw in her back then, and I’m not entirely sure whether it was true confidence or just pure dog-headed stubbornness. The two can look very much alike sometimes.

I’m not one to shy away from mages, and I don’t fear them, but blood magic...the kind of risk that puts anyone at is too concerning to treat as lightly or as casually as Merrill did. Once I’d seen that I stopped wondering why she was leaving her clan over a disagreement. I’d learn more about that later, though, as things grew more serious.

We got to the graveyard, dispelling a few restless spirits and shades along the way, and Merrill performed the funeral ritual, which somehow pulled Flemeth out of the amulet. Apparently I’d been carrying a piece of her in my pocket all the way from Ferelden. Just why she’d done things this way rather than simply come herself was a question she refused to give a straight answer to, and given that she’s hardly a woman you can press for answers I didn’t bother to try.

She did leave me with a parting warning, though: she said that we were both tools of destiny, and that great change was coming. I needed to watch for the moment it happened and leap when it did. At the time I had no idea what she might be talking about, just as I wasn’t sure what Marethari meant when she said I had a light inside me that I would need later. By the time I found out, I wished I hadn’t.

Regardless, my debt was paid, my errand done, and Merrill came back with me to Kirkwall. She’s born Dalish, so Kirkwall being her first time inside a human city was hardly the best experience, and the conditions of Kirkwall’s alienage are worse than a lot of places, but she was determined to make the best of it. She made me promise to visit her, which I agreed to; the only thing worse than being suddenly forced into someplace new and different is not knowing anyone around you at all.

Besides. She needed keeping an eye on. The girl was far too naïve and trusting, and Kirkwall is a harsh place. She’d almost definitely get herself in trouble out of sheer accident, and considering I’d brought her here I felt more than a little responsible for her.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 3 - Grandfather's Will

Over that first year in Kirkwall, Mother kept worrying over Grandfather’s will and what happened to the estate. At first I simply put it down to her being shocked at what had changed since she’d left Kirkwall, but as the months passed and Uncle Gamlen’s answers never got any clearer I started having suspicions. So did Bethany. Uncle Gamlen always avoided talking about Grandfather’s will, trying to change the subject or divert attention every time Mother brought it up – which was usually every time Gamlen brought up our lack of money, which we wouldn’t have had so little of if he’d have stopped his infernal gambling. That’s what lost him the estate to begin with. You’d think he’d have learned his lesson then, but clearly not.

Bethany and I walked in on yet another argument between Mother and Gamlen one day, and we finally started getting some answers. Grandfather’s will still existed, left in the vault in the family estate. Odd, no? You’d think Gamlen would have at least taken that with him. And the fact that he refused to answer my question of whether Grandfather had even mentioned Mother in the will also struck me as suspicious. Bethany, too; she spoke to both Gamlen and Mother about it before coming to me with an idea.

Gamlen had lost the estate to a slaver – a slaver, of all things! Maker, what an arse of a man! – and the new owner kept the front doors under constant guard, but Mother still had a key to the cellar. All we had to do was find the entrance through the sewers. And we did. It was a strange feeling, sneaking into our family’s ancestral home. Seeing the Amell crest, imagining what it might have been like, had we been born here, in a house with a real crest over the door.

Of course, if that had happened, I likely would never have gotten to know my little sister and Carver would have been separated from his twin, so who knows. Maybe it really was better the way it happened.

Anyway.

We found Grandfather’s will, and learned that not only had he forgiven Mother for leaving, but he’d left her everything. All the money, the estate, everything, with Uncle Gamlen only getting a stipend that Mother was in charge of deciding the amount of.

He’d stolen her inheritance. Our birthright. I’m not sure if he did it out of greed or jealousy or both, honestly; Gamlen can’t say ‘good morning’ without lying twice. I don’t guess his motive matters much now, anyway. The important thing was that Mother now had Grandfather’s will in her hand, which meant she had the evidence to reclaim the estate so long as she could get an audience with the viscount. Gamlen snorted at the idea, said she wasn’t anywhere close to being somebody enough for that, but he clearly had forgotten the kind of woman Mother was because all she said was ‘Well, I’d better get started, then’ and walked out of the room with all the poise of a queen.

The will wasn’t the only thing we took from the estate, though; I grabbed an old portrait of Mother’s. She looked so much like Bethany when she was younger. I take more after our father in looks, but Bethany could have been Mother’s twin. It was nice, to see how Mother was back when she had more reason to smile, and it gave me more incentive to keep working. Mother would work her own brand of magic on the nobles of Kirkwall, I was sure, but I was sure that if Bethany and I could make a name for ourselves with Bartrand’s expedition that would help speed things along.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 2 - Earning Coin

When our contract with Athenril ended, Bethany and I tried to find whatever work we could. Not just to keep food in our bellies – we’d more than learned by now that our uncle couldn’t be relied on for that, with his constant debts – but to keep ourselves safe. Mostly to keep Bethany safe. Kirkwall was crawling with Templars, and Knight-Commander Meredith’s reputation even back then was not one that lent itself to showing any kind of leniency to apostates. With no reputation, title, or coin to hide behind we had to keep a very low profile indeed, and that made things difficult.

Aveline had found a position with the city guard, which gave her steady work and security, but that was out of the question for Bethany and I have never been much for taking orders myself; Carver was the soldier of the family, not me. So we combed the city, Bethany and I, looking for any kind of work that might get us the reputation or the coin we needed for security. That was what led us to Bartrand Tethras and, arguably more importantly, what led us to Varric.

Bartrand was planning an expedition to the Deep Roads; with the Blight over, the Deep Roads should be mostly clear of darkspawn and thus safer for people who weren’t Grey Wardens to travel. When we first approached him to take us on as guards, though, he refused immediately and without question. It was Varric who approached us later, giving us a way in. He’d vouch for us to his brother if we’d become partners in the expedition. Of course, that came with the problem of having to raise fifty sovereigns, but he had ideas on that score, too. Plus our connection to Aveline, which Bethany thought we could make use of to see if she’d heard of anything that might help us earn that kind of coin.

Then, of course, there was always the chanter’s board. We picked over that daily, but so did the rest of Kirkwall, which meant that usually everything that would pay already had someone claiming it. Our good fortune, then, when we were on our way to see Aveline, that we saw a notice get pinned to it by a rather angry young man. He was seeking vengeance for his entire family and had posted a reward for the mercenary band responsible. I’m not fond of killing for coin, and I’ve never wanted my sister to fall into such things, but...well, we were running out of options. If we couldn’t raise the coin for this expedition, our last solid chance was going to slip away.

Going to see Aveline paid off, though; she’d found word of some sort of ambush being planned up on Sundermount, and she was willing to hire us on as temporary recruits to help her deal with it. If it worked, we got paid and she got a hopeful boost to her reputation among the guard, so naturally we agreed. Besides, we still had an errand on Sundermount to complete, delivering Flemeth’s amulet to the Dalish keeper. We had a few days to prepare, which was all to the good, since there was family drama brewing in the background. Again.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Chapter 1 - The First Year

Our arrival in Kirkwall was about as pleasant as the trip over had been; in other words, not at all. Kirkwall was all but swimming in Fereldan refugees fleeing the Blight. The city was closed, with few if anyone actually getting inside. Mother had sent a letter ahead to our uncle Gamlen, so we had some hope that having family inside expecting our arrival would stand us in good stead in terms of getting inside the city.

Boy were we wrong.

Mother’s family, the Amells, were nobility, or so she’d told us. She’d eloped with our father as a girl and come to Ferelden, so all the twins and I knew of the Amells were the few stories Mother used to tell us. Her parents had been furious with her for running off with an apostate mage, but with Grandfather and Grandmother long since dead and Uncle Gamlen her only living family now I suppose she was hoping for at least a lukewarm welcome. When we met Uncle Gamlen, though, it became very apparent that what Mother had expected couldn’t be farther from reality.

Uncle Gamlen, it seemed, had fallen on extremely hard times. It was going to take a major bribe – or several – to get us into the city, and whatever estate the family had had he’d sold off to cover a gambling debt, of all things. No money, no title, no nobility; everything was gone. Still, he said, he had some contacts that were willing to help us get inside. For a price.

Which was us. Me and Bethany. He’d promised our services for a year in return for getting us inside the city. Sold us right into indentured servitude without batting an eye. Which also, conveniently enough for him, absolved him of yet more debt, I learned when I spoke with the two contacts he’d reached out to. One, Meeran, was the leader of a mercenary band called the Red Iron. I’ve nothing against mercenaries, as a rule, but I wasn’t about to bring my little sister into a life of bloodshed and killing; we’d seen more than enough of that just getting out of Ferelden.

The other, Athenril, was a smuggler. I never pictured myself as the thieving type, but she promised no killing and no slave trade. Good enough for me. Aveline wasn’t too pleased – Mother insisted, and Bethany and I agreed, that she was with us when it came to getting into Kirkwall – but she didn’t seem to mind playing the enforcer during the test Athenril set us; honestly I think she had fun intimidating the merchant who was cheating our fellow Fereldans out of what little they had left.

But we proved ourselves worthy and that got us into the city. Working with Athenril wasn’t so bad, and it did at least give us some small reputation amongst the denizens of Lowtown to start out with. Not much of one, sure, but every little bit helps. Uncle Gamlen’s home was small, but it was a roof, and we had food in our bellies; most of the refugees didn’t, so on the whole we did get lucky that it all worked out for us. After that first year, though, things got more complicated.

[icgaminglogs]

The Memoirs of James Hawke

Prologue

Varric’s started encouraging me to write down everything that’s happened. ‘Preserving the tale for posterity’, he calls it. Easy for him to say; telling and writing tales is all but his bread and butter. But I don’t suppose there’s much harm in the attempt, and it’ll at least ensure that my story is preserved in my own words somewhere. I have this sneaking suspicion that Varric is going to take some poetic license and add more embellishment than at all necessary when he tells the tale.

So where to begin. That would be the Blight, I suppose. My family had settled in Lothering; my mother, myself, and the twins, Bethany and Carver. The first moderately stable home we’d had in quite a while, even if it was in the middle of nowhere. With an apostate for a father and a sister, living anywhere else for any length of time was out of the question, though I was never too upset with them. That was simply how life was for us. Our bad luck that Lothering was the first stop for the darkspawn after they’d overrun Ostagar.

Our good luck that both Carver and myself survived Loghain’s treachery and escaped the slaughter of that battlefield. It meant we could get back to Mother and Bethany, get them out and to safety, though it was far too close a thing. Lothering was burning by the time we made our escape, and we had to cut our way out.

That was how we first met Aveline; she and her husband Wesley had also been caught by the darkspawn. She a soldier who’d escaped Ostagar, he a templar who seemed none too happy about having his life saved by an apostate. But with darkspawn on our heels, he agreed to a truce while we all tried to save our skins. Not that it worked.

Mother suggested fleeing to Kirkwall, where she’d grown up, but that meant trying to get all the way to Gwaren with darkspawn everywhere. Even with Aveline and Wesley, fighting our way through would have been all but impossible; the genlocks and the hurlocks were bad enough, but the ogres...I’m still not sure how I managed to take one down myself. I got lucky, I suppose. The luck wouldn’t hold; the next one we met killed my little brother. Carver survived Ostagar only to get bludgeoned against the stone by one of those fucking monsters...it broke Mother’s heart. Wesley at least gave him his last rites, even if we couldn’t hold a proper funeral, but even so, if the dragon hadn’t shown up then Bethany and I would probably have had to carry Mother away from his body, and then we all would have died.

Yes, there was a dragon. A dragon that turned into a woman after destroying all the darkspawn that had surrounded us like they were nothing. She was tall, fearsome, powerful, with that sort of handsome appearance that some women have when they know there is nothing on this plane more worrying than they are.

Don’t look at me like that, I’m only human and she was attractive. Not in the sense that I would have willingly bedded her – I’m not that stupid, or that suicidal – but in the sense that she commanded attention without demanding it...not that that makes sense even to me, but you try describing Flemeth, the Witch of the Wilds, Asha’bellenar, in purely mortal terms and see how well you manage.

Anyway.

She seemed somehow impressed with us – with me in specific – and agreed to help us get out, so long as we performed a service for her. Take an amulet to the Keeper of a Dalish tribe just outside Kirkwall. It seemed simple enough, and also we didn’t have much choice. Especially not since Wesley was already suffering from the corruption of the darkspawn taint. It broke Aveline’s heart, but I at least gave him a swift death. It was the only thing any of us could do.

Flemeth kept her word and got us to Gwaren. Finding a ship to take us across to Kirkwall was our own problem, but we had just enough coin left to buy passage in a cramped hold. There’s little enough to say about that crossing; the weather was foul and the accommodations terrible, but beggars can hardly be choosers. At any rate, that was how I first came to Kirkwall.