Kintsugi Plays Dragon Age: Inquisition (There Are No Therapists)

^boomy-voice

^New voice! Also echoey and sourceless.

Okay, now shit's getting REALLY weird.

Anyway, shortly after this, we reach the courtyard:

^...Justinia?

^...um.

Wren.

Only echoey.

Pretty sure that, although it's certainly appropriate for the circumstances, the Wren I'm currently playing did not just say that.

She looks pretty befuddled in this shot. Me too, Cass, me too.

 

With the next burst of light...

...we meet this charming fellow.

Skeletal, semi-transparent, ragged robes, burning eyes, source of booming voice talking about sacrifices... he seems nice. I am sure we will be friends.

And that is the Glow Lady's hat. Maybe not Andraste, then?

OH LOOK IT'S WREN

PAST WREN?

STOP THE RIDE I WANNA GET OFF

We'll, uh, just quietly ignore the fact that Past Wren is wearing Present Wren's facepaint.

Actually, hat notwithstanding, I don't think she is Glow Lady. I mean, she's not glowing. She's also not physically reaching out to Past Wren, who isn't climbing a mountain away from creepy-ass spider-monsters.

Fade stuff is weird.

 

>Wren: YOU HATE TIME TRAVEL YOU HATE TIME TRAVEL YOU HATE TIME TRAVEL

 

>Wren: The only person worse than Past You is Future You

 

>Wren: Admire Cass' befuddlement face, it is adorable

 

Anyway, what does our nice new friend have to say about this development?

Tal-Vashoth, you jerk!

...also the trying to have me killed part, that's not very nice either.

After a bright flash of light that makes everyone flinch...

...the images are gone.

How many times do we have to say that?

^Solas.

^Also Solas.

So if I'm understanding correctly, the Fade has visual echoes of things that happen there, and so close to the Breach, we were able to see one. Presumably this big rift was opened from the Fade side in order to snatch the Divine for human sacrifice; the Breach is either a side effect of, or a necessary precursor to, opening it. It was then closed behind them so that any survivors of the greensplosion, or any investigators afterward should they arrive in time, would not be able to enter that way in an attempt to save her.

Not sure how Wren ended up on the other side. Did we just happen to be the one standing closest to Justinia, and got dragged along with her? Seems not entirely likely for some random merc, but it could have happened.

I assume the spiderthings were what tall, dark, and scary sic'd on us just before the echo ended. And then Glow Lady saved us by giving us the Mark, allowing us to reopen the rift to get out- the ability to seal the things afterward was probably not just an incidental side effect, she was almost certainly choosing us for the Foiling of Evil Plans, but that's not 100% sure at this point.

 

I appreciate your Developing Theories. :D

 

So... our Designated Smart Guy is literally telling us to turn it off and on again. (Okay, on and off again, but I couldn't resist.)

Open Fade rifts = dangerous. Got it.

Yay, backup soldiers!

I get my glow on, and I can already tell that these shots are going to get repetitive eventually.

But this one results in:

Pride demons suck. But on the bright side, they do provide good excuses for posing dramatically:

 

SHE DIDN'T MEAN YOU

(the words obscured by the boss' name are "its defenses".)

And thus begins our first big boss fight! It took me a while, partly because my framerate was dropping, but mostly because I was still figuring out how fighting works in conjunction with rifts. Apparently you disrupt it for a little while, and then it stays disrupted for a little while, which makes sense- if you just left the player character doing their Mark thing all through the combat, it would get boring.

I did have to pause and fiddle with the camera every so often to see if it was up for more disrupting yet; I'm sure there's a better way, but I haven't found it yet.

At least, when the characters aren't notifying me.

Kossith provided for scale. I BARELY COME UP PAST ITS KNEE.

Oh, and occasionally a bunch of smaller demons would spawn and have to be cleaned up:

Leliana and I, doing what we each do best!

Usually I'd do the "Seeker Obvious" joke again, but given the aforementioned issue of framerate + camera-fiddling, I had actually not yet realized that the demon was dead. That and it hadn't quite fallen over yet, so Cass is actually ahead of the curve on this one.

 

I did, however, only need to be told once. I don't recall who this was, but don't you hate it when someone yells at you to do the thing while you're already doing the thing?

Solas stares at it all intensely. The rift vanishes. More green light runs upward from where it was...

The villagers of Haven watch curiously as it reaches the Breach, which sends a pulse of its own in all directions...

A REALLY FRIGGIN BRIGHT ONE, apparently...

...and we wake up in another place we don't remember falling asleep in.

At least we're not in irons this time.

Actually, the bed is very nice, although I don't think the pillows will ever be the same after their encounter with metal-clad horns. Shirt seems fancy, too, if maybe not the comfiest sleepwear ever.

The room's pretty nice, too, in a rustic kind of way. Not very secure with that wide-open window. Have we been upgraded from "dangerous prisoner" to "honored guest"?

Smol elf boy seems like a point in the "guest" column. Granted, he drops his box and freaks out a bit when we sit up:

But that seems to be more worrying that he's bothering us than that we're going to go on a murder-rampage.

>_?

 

>2

 

>Why are you afraid?


This poor kid. #relateablepicturesofelves

#relateablepicturesofwren

I seriously thought this poor elf was fainting at this point...

...but it's just a demonstration of exactly how honored a guest we now are.

And why.

We don't have to die of it or lose our kickass rift powers! Best of both worlds!

Seriously, kid, get up...

...you're creeping Wren out.

>_?

 

>They're... pleased?

 

>2

 

>They're... pleased?

Allow Wren to put on her skepticles.

Ffs, smol elf, get up- oh, there he goes.

Bad news: Jerkdude was not in fact eaten by demons while we were off saving the world.
Good news: We have open world! Open-ish, anyway, the plot has not let us off its rails quite yet.

First order of business: see what was in Smol Elf's box. (It was elfroot.)

Then look around the rest of our little cabin, where we find some promising-looking gear and a readable note!

Looks like the doctor who got us to the start of the game was pretty Done. I assume the reason they couldn't bring in a templar was because all the nearby ones had been greensploded?

With the cabin explored, I took the opportunity to read some codices and apply my new level.

Dodginess get!

 

*lols at "medium armour of the dragon"*

 

I like that knife. That is a nice knife.

...I don't even care if it has a kinda silly name, look at that armor. Look at how incredibly kickass Wren looks. Look at how it is only for us, all for us. I think I'm in love.

I shall wear it outside!

...Where people are weirdly respectful. This is going to take some getting used to!

I fucking knew it.

 

I imagine Wren having a bit of an internal crisis at this point.
But I'm not even Andrastian! I'm Tal-Vashoth! I don't even believe in my OWN religion!

Are heralds of Andraste allowed to get sloppy drunk in taverns? Or cheat at cards? Why is this happening to me?!

In the throes of crisis, she falls back on familiar RPG protagonist behavior, like talking to anyone who has a floaty thing over their head.

Only to find that they're not going to tell us anything we don't already know, at least not yet.

Will opening random doors and poking around inside private residences bring comfort?

Or stopping to listen to some randos' conversation? It is nice to see someone who's neither overawed nor strongly desirous of seeing me dead, actually.

Random private residence has another doctor's note. Awe of citizenry clearly massive improvement on attempts to murder us in our sleep.
(Oh, and it looks like we were out for three days. SYMBOLISM!!!!!)

 

Ah, okay. I'd thought it was too early for the Breach to be brought under control, but it looks like that didn't do anything about the rifts it had already spawned, so we're going to have to track those down one by one. Still plenty of glowy stuff for us to do.

Someone else with a speech bubble! (Also I adore how this coat moves, it's not 100% perfect animation but it's beautiful, even with all my graphics settings turned way down to spare my framerate.)

So what I'm hearing from you, game, is that I should go putz around some more before I go talk to Cass. On it!

Electrical resistance is not really what I would have associated with velveteen, but okay.

Aha! Now we're cooking with rogues!

 

Subtext: Which you're going to be doing soon. Right?

In the next randomly-invaded house:

...I'll just... leave that there.

Thank you so much for this information that I did not previously possess!
At least he doesn't mind me rifling his chest:

CRAFTING SHIT. I cannot guarantee that I'm not going to waste hours on crafting shit.

This is in that same guy's house, so maybe he's our doctor? We should thank him if that's ever confirmed.