Alistair was bored. And anxious. A week ago Alistair had received a scout. This particular scout had caught his interest because of the report that came with him. It told of walking corpses. This was nothing new to him having to face many possessed corpses during The Blight, but these corpses were different, so told the report. These corpses wouldn't die no matter how much you would hit them. Another thing had disturbed him on this report. The bite of these dead would make one's allies turn on them.
It had started as a scouting mission of a small town by the name of Manor's Creek. A scout of a passing patrol had spotted smoke coming from one of the buildings. He had reported this to the captain who, intruiged, decided to investigate it. He sent the same scout to King Alistair's court telling him to expect a delay. Two days after the initial sightings the scout arrived and gave the King his report. Alistair thought nothing of it at the time. Three days later though, the surviving member of the captain's team, the one who's report caught his eye, came crashing into the castle's front gates. He gave his report, was mocked, and then sent away, pleading that the King at least send someone to investigate.
Alistair thought long and hard about what Scott had said, the scout, and then he decided to at least humor the poor soul and sent a party of four. And now six days of waiting and Alistair was starting to feel guilt and regret. He was feeling responsible for sending four soldiers to meaningless deaths. Then just as the tension Alistair was harboring was about to explode, a warrior which he had sent to view the carnage many had believed to be Scott's sleep deprived mind playing tricks on him. The warrior had spoken of the same horrors that Scott had seen only previous days before, only that this horde was further away from the epicenter of Manor's Creek!
It was times like these that his leader friend the Commander of the Gray was here by his side instead of trying to find that blasted women of his.
On a side note, it was his idea to let the mages study freely without the oppression of the Templar Order, but this had proven hazardous to many peoples' lives, so he regulated it to a personal Templar to each mage belonging to the Circle. Most mages still thought this was too much so there are still apostates. Mages were still very easy to handle because although they had their relative freedom they were still shunned from society finding it hard to settle down in any other place than a Circle Tower. This caused them to be heavily concentrated.
Alistair was of course referring to Morrigan. That seductress got to him, then left, and then made him chase after her. The last reports of anyone seeing him was at the Circle Tower on Calenhad Lake travelling with his mabari, a young Dalish women, and a finicky mage. Nobody has seen him since.
The warrior had died within his first hour of being in the castle. He died from an overtly infected scratch and exhaustion from days of travelling without sleep. Alistair made proper funeral arrangements for the man, but not before sending Scott on an important errand to Kirkwall