Hopefully the disappearing people thing will get sorted... makes me rather paranoid that half my Inner Circle are going to up and vanish when I want to talk. Or start quests. Fortunately, it's just been Blackwall for me so far. Stopped me completing his personal quest on my second playthrough though.
Thought I’d do a couple of approval sidequests today – returning telepathic rams and whatnot. I’m saving the refugee ones in case Dorian wants to approve of good deeds, but I figure he’s not going to care much about missing pet problems. This playthrough, Lord Woolsey turned out to be a real bugger to catch. It was almost tempting to light him on fire, like Adaar sometimes does accidentally to nugs (no one tell Cole it’s not an accident).
When it came to escorting that pesky druffalo, I thought “hey, why not lead the indestructible beast to fight some demons in a river?” Well, Druffy only went and headbutted one enemy, before running away, all the way back to the starting point! The moment Cass fell, Adaar knew they were in hot water (heh, ‘hot water’). She high-tailed it all the way back to the accursed druffalo. The stealthy approach seemed more sensible for a second attempt. Since Sera was with us that time, I got to hear Adaar’s cry for her getting badly injured. It’s not quite as hysterical as the English voice. Just remembering that gave me some fluffy Lavellan/Sera feelings. And since I really sucked at fighting on my first playthrough, Lavellan was shouting “Someone help Sera!” every five seconds.
Finished off with one of the best story missions, In Your Heart Shall Burn. Shortly after prepping the trebuchets, we noticed this unfortunate guy. Painful!
On a side note, I think it’s time to activate ‘hide helmet’ again. Every vitaar seems to make Adaar look like a displaced member of Kiss, Cassandra is currently wearing a cowl that gives her a square head, and Varric’s helmet gives me flashbacks to Duke-Fallen-From-Grace. Cole is the only one who looks fine, but I don’t love his hat enough to subject the other three to such fashion faux pas.
Adaar saved all the helpless Haven villagers, which earned much approval from Varric, but zilch from Cass and Cole (seriously guys? Even Vivienne loved that bit of heroism).
The most wonderful part came when the Inquisitor and party decided to make their final stand. The music really hammers in the tension and ‘we’re going to die fighting!’ feeling. Always has me all trembling and excited! Adaar just finished the final trebuchet by the skin of her teeth. Damn, brain-washed Fiona is tough. Should’ve used dispel more. I’ve never once defeated the boss at that point (is it even possible?) Then of course it’s the first confrontation with Coryfish and an avalanche. Exciting stuff.
After a rousing song and some revelations from a pocket-sized pyjama elf, the Inquisition set off to its new home of Skyhold.
You... you don't love Cole's hat?
... j/k, I always have "hide helmets" on, which is really a shame because, in addition to the awesomeness of Cole's hat, Viv looks great in her fancy hats, and Bull wearing "Dread" would strike fear into anyone's heart. Not to mention the Inquisitor's helm, once you get it.
I haven't been able to rescue anywhere close to all of the Haven folks. Two or three at best. Given that none of them keep a real job once we get to Skyhold, I don't feel quite as bad... but still
Today was a good day for Eglantine Trevelyan! Having cleared out Caer Bronach of bandits and claiming it for the Inquisition (thanks Vivienne for that suggestion) she sought out Diana Hawke's rebel Warden now living in a cave...who only turned out to be one-time-rotter Loghain MacTir! As it turns out, Loghain and Hawke don't seem to be really good chums - there was a lot of bickering later on in the Western Approach. Happily there were NO BEARS in this regions but we did have a couple of sticky moments with druffaloes. We didn't go out of our way to attack them of course but they do seem to like getting caught in the crossfire and once they turn nasty, they are really nasty!
Never mind, we survived and then it was off to the Western Approach (after a quick stop at Skyhold to do the rounds) and seek out the rest of the Wardens. I really like the Western Approach. I don't know why - it's just really beautiful. I can even put up with those areas that seem to constantly spawn quillbacks and hyenas while you're trying to peer through a skull to look for shards! We destroyed some red lyrium for Varric and found a book for Vivienne (thanks for the slight approval Viv - ungrateful besom) and then went to confront the dastardly Erimond. What are the Wardens thinking, falling in with this guy?? Of course its a great idea to sacrifice your own people and raise demons! Eglantine had no time for this and enjoyed blasting Erimond but, sadly, he got away leaving her little group to finish off the remaining Wardens and demons.
Back to Skyhold again. Solas is still not happy with her and VERY angry about what the Wardens are up to! Eglantine agrees (for a change) but they still managed to bicker over the 'demon part' of the arrangement. For a bit of light relief, she presented Cassandra with the next chapter of 'Swords and Shields'. Cass pretended not to care but was secretly really pleased (I love Miranda Raison's voice acting in these scenes). Then Josephine wanted some help with not getting assassinated. Eglantine couldn't be bothered with all that 'chatting up the nobles' nonsense, so she went with Leliana's idea of destroying the contract. Josephine is not best pleased but at least she's still alive! Finally, it was off to have another crack at Cullen! No flirting this time - she just came right out with how she felt and, luckily, he felt the same and they enjoyed their first kiss on the battlements. She'll go to bed a happy girl tonight!
I'm looking forward to my next game, where I've got a world state with Loghain in Stroud's place. Seems kinda funny that I'm trying to get Loghain into a game before Alistair, since I definitely preferred the latter over the former, but... oh well, I think I've got an Alistair world state ready for the game after next, heh.
After a fruitless trip to Fallow Mire where Julia couldn't find even a single dawn lotus (whoever wrote that resource report should be fired) she decided it was time to end this. While discussing plans and strategy in the war room, the anchor started doing weird glowy stuff and suddenly the breach over Haven was opened again. How they could see that far out the windows, I'm not sure, but it meant the time to act was now. No army for backup though, but considering they've been able to take out 10 high dragons with a party of 4, taking out 1 not-so-high-dragon plus a wannabe god with the entire companion troupe plus Morrigan should be, if not easy, certainly doable nonetheless. Stop worrying, Cullen!
They marched to Haven and there was Coryfish, all by himself with no army either. To make up for this, he decided to levitate the entire area and then run away. He did have his dragon, but Morrigan swooped in (swooping was definitely not bad in this case) and knocked it for a loop, keeping it busy while everyone else focused on Cory. Dorian got smoked a couple of times (forgot his barrier) and pretty soon two enormous dragons were dropping out of the sky nearly on top of them. Morrigan reverted to her human form, a bit worse for wear and in no shape to fight, so the rest attacked the dragon. Julia may have used Spirit Blade a time or two during this fight. With the dragon killed (nice cut scene using said blade, btw, for the finishing move) then it was Cory's turn. One Mark of the Rift (full focus) from Julia and one Hail of Arrows (also full focus) from Varric and he was toast.
Solas mourned the loss of [his] orb, and then vanished. Everyone else went home to Skyhold for a huge party and celebration. Julia's first stop: Cullen embrace. After talking to everyone at the party, she managed to slip quietly to her bedroom door only to be met by Cullen They quickly went upstairs but not before Julia raised a very large "do not disturb" barrier against the door. No one's getting through that.
Final stats:
Level: 24
Inq. level: 18
Power: 277
Gold: 54382
Divine: Cassandra
War table missions completed:185 (multiple times gathering the same resource counting as 1 mission)
Now I'm off to the Keep to fix the world state for my dwarfquisitor.
Edited for grammar
Congrats on another finish. 
We were keeping pace in our games for awhile there, but you're moving much faster than I am now.
At last, my mage has found a tomb/ruin/abandoned temple that apparently eluded me during my first playthrough! Boy, it sure pays to wander around in the snow in Emprise du Lion for somewhere close to forever! I found a dead elf and some info, which eventually led to the Cradle of Sulevin. Surprisingly picturesque place...except for all the dead corpses and revenants. I snapped a few commemorative screenshots, which I haven't uploaded yet because I had a bunch of other stuff to do. *cough* leveling my shaman in WoW *cough*
Did you find the pirate captain cutlass?
As for Harold and the gang, they finished off Emprise Du Lion in spectacular whirlwind fashion. Hivernal, Kaltenzahn, and the Highland Ravager all slain without pause.... Okay wait, I lied. Where's Varric when I need him? He would embellish, but I can't *sigh*. After taking down Hivernal and Kaltenzahn, the gang detoured briefly back to Skyhold... but I'll get to that. On dragon-slaying first let me say, however awesome Dorian might be (or believe himself to be) everywhere else, he is not a dragonslayer.
Like, at all.
Against Hivernal, he gluttoned (it's a word! Varric said so! ) fully half of our supply of healing potions and still died before the fight was over. Silly mage. Bull used one and Harold had to use the other. One might ask why, and I would answer, "because I didn't notice that somehow all of my ability hotkeys got switched around." Has this happened to anyone else? At the beginning of the fight, as we moved into range, Harold shot a "Long Shot" at Hivernal. Or so I thought he did. What he actually did was use up his fully-charged "Thousand Cuts" instead. *grumble* ... so didn't get to use it after applying a fire-flask again, and had to settle for taking Hivernal's health down a little bit instead of a lot.
Crap.
Net effect of this is that the fight went on a little longer than it should have, and Hivernal got in a few lucky shots with those snowballs of hers, which is why Harold needed a healing potion. So... this left the gang with two healing potions left to face Kaltenzahn. No focus stored up for "thousand cuts" and the memory of the Kaltenzahn fight from my first game, which was fairly tough and a real grind for Knight-Enchanter Inky. I was not looking forward to it.
But we did it anyway, because we are the Inquisition. 
Dorian died early (of course), but Kaltenzahn was actually very little trouble for the group this time around. Judicious use of tempest-flasks and properly re-arranged hotkeys and we made quick work of the dragon and the handful of kiddoes she summoned. It really was over in no time at all. So I decided I'd go close the last two rifts and collect the last half-dozen shards before waking up the Highland Ravager. Also, Bull used the last two healing potions, so I wanted to restock and figure out how to divide all the shiny new loot we picked up from those two dragons.
The plus side of closing those rifts and fighting some random pop-up red templars is that I rebuilt all my focus. Yay.
Back at Skyhold, I ran around and talked with all my companions. No change in Blackwall's personal-quest-non-appearingness, but Solas took me on a dream-tour of Haven, and I'd forgotten that hadn't happened yet in this game, so I'm still holding out hope that I'll get to deal with those Kirkwall mages and Solas' spirit-buddy in the Exalted Plains after all. 
Cullen found out that Samson is hiding out in the Temple of Dumat, and he wants to take care of things personally, so I told him he could wait until we slayed the Highland Ravager, or he could come with us and help us slay the Highland Ravager. He decided to wait. 
I told him to challenge Dorian to another game of chess so we could sneak back to Emprise Du Lion without him. We grabbed Vivienne and off we went.
This time, Harold made proper use of fire-flask + Thousand Cuts and the Highland Ravager was nearly taken out of the fight before she even woke up for it. It was glorious. With only tier 2 focus it wasn't enough to kill her outright, but dayum it sure was fun to do. The poor beastie only had a chance to summon two little dragonlings to try and help her before we ended the fight, instead of the two or three dozen she was able to summon in my first game, heh.
Maybe the ease of the fight was why I didn't get any fade-touched silverite this time
Anyway, now we're off to the Temple of Dumat to see what that naughty Samson has been up to, and then the Hissing Wastes.
Retour en haut
) and I am playing the game mainly controlling Sera unless I am rift busting since Draven is destroying things like no tommarow as a Ai character while I pwn as Sera which I find laughable. I still feel like when i played my sw/sh fem warrior Amalla Vollsa I still had to use stratagey for my character so I rarely switched unless it was a dragon battle where I switched to Sera and pwned dragons as her.
With the dragon killed (nice cut scene using said blade, btw, for the finishing move) then it was Cory's turn. One Mark of the Rift (full focus) from Julia and one Hail of Arrows (also full focus) from Varric and he was toast. 
