The first misled noble we find standing just outside her estate talking with her servants. Although she's outraged by the deception when Neria shows her the documents, she says only her father, Lord Dace, is authorised to have the documents nullified, and he's on an expedition in the Deep Roads. Neria and the others decide to go look for him tomorrow, if they end up deciding to support Bhelen.
The noble from the other House isn't home, but his steward tells us we can find him in the tavern called Tapsters, back in the Commons, so we head there next. We pass by a woman praying at a small shrine nearby, and she tells us about her son who went missing in the Deep Roads. Neria promises her that she'll keep an eye out for him if she goes to the Deep Roads in the near future.
Next, we come across the only other human we've seen in Orzammar outside our group, and he introduces himself as Brother Burkel. He asks Neria if she can bring his request to the Shaperate to host chantry prayer meetings, because she's a Warden and they're more likely to say yes to her, so she promises she will if we find ourselves in the Shaperate. I ask Brother Burkel what the Shaperate is; he says it's like a big library of all the dwarves' history. If only elves had something like that.
Neria won't let me go into Tapsters, so I have to stay outside with Wynne (and Sten and Shale because they can't fit through the door), but its ok because there's a lot of stalls around with interesting things to look at. When Neria and the rest return, they update us on what happened inside. They spoke to Lord Helmi and showed him the land deed, and he wasn't happy about that, but more importantly, we now know that Bhelen is against the caste system which makes life terrible for anyone without a caste. So, that makes him a bit better, I guess.
We head to the Proving Grounds next to investigate, and we discover that one of the fighters has been warned to withdraw, otherwise Bhelen's supporters will reveal his secret love affair- they have the love letters he sent. Leliana offers to sneak into the waiting room of the fighter who has the letters, and they are returned to him shortly after.
In the end, Neria and the others agree to go with Bhelen; he's not exactly a good person, but neither is Harrowmont, and at least with Bhelen, the casteless could have a chance at improving their lot in life. Besides, time is ticking for the Landsmeet to be called. The other perk is that Bhelen allows us all to stay in the Royal Palace's guest wing as his honoured guests during our time in Orzammar. Which means I get to sleep in a bed for the first time in months, and the beds are surprisingly soft and comfortable, despite being built into stone slabs.
The next day, I spend the hours wandering the palace with Barkspawn in tow while the others go to the Deep Roads in search of Lord Dace. They come back covered in mud and dust, but their mission was successful; they'd found him, and he was suitably outraged by the whole double land title thing.
Finally, Neria and Alistair are granted an audience with Bhelen, who insists he still can't take power successfully right now because there's a cell of the Carta, the dwarven criminal organisation, which is getting out of control and threatening businesses all over Orzammar. So, he wants Neria and Alistair to take down the cell's leader, Jarvia, on his behalf.
It takes a few days for the group to track down Jarvia's hide-out, but it's definitely somewhere in Dust Town, the area on the other side of Orzammar where all the casteless live- it reminds me of the Alienage. Not how the place looks, which is all made of stone and dirt, and doesn't have a lot of light, but how people look at you when you walk by.
Eventually, the group tracks down the hide-out, but naturally I have to stay behind, with Sten and Shale, again (small doors). However! Neria does give me the important task of picking a nug from the nug seller to give Leliana, who hasn't stopped going on about how cute nugs are since we got here.
Neria and the others return to the palace in the evening, after dealing with the carta and searching their hide-out for anything that could give us a better idea of what's being going on. At least it's done now, and Neria can get Bhelen to go claim the throne so we can get a move on. But it turns out that was just wishful thinking, because what Bhelen really wants is for Neria to go to the Deep Roads and find Branka, a living Paragon who went missing along with her whole House two years ago on an expedition to the Deep Roads for some ancient treasure.
Branka could still be alive, so Bhelen wants us to find her and convince her to support him becoming king; a single vote from a Paragon would outweigh all the other nobles' votes put together. This would be a much longer trip than the day's walk it took to find Lord Dace, though. The thaig Branka and her House were headed for is at least a week's travel away, assuming they made it there and found the treasure there as well, and didn't go further into the Deep Roads than that.
This time, everyone departs except for Wynne, who volunteers as my watcher; I think she likes my company, but I also think she's just tired from all the travelling and the fighting. Every day, Wynne and I walk around the palace, the Shaperate, the Commons market or the Diamond Quarter market. At the end of the week, we go to a Proving match, which is very bloody, and sad because the fighters fight to the death. Wynne and I both agree it was an interesting experience, but we probably wouldn't go again.
Another week stretches out, and we get a letter back from the Circle, too, so we get to give Dagna the good news that she's welcome to go and study there. By the third week I'm starting to worry that something terrible has happened and that's why the others aren't back yet. Wynne says it's probably just taking them a while to make the return trip, and that we don't really need to worry until Arl Eamon sends word that the date has been set for the Landsmeet.
When they do return to the palace, I hug them all individually, even Morrigan, and she doesn't even jerk away like she usually does. That's my first warning that something is wrong. Wynne and I get the story in bits and pieces over dinner.
"There were a lot of darkspawn," says Zevran.
"We even saw the archdemon, but I don't think it saw us," Leliana shudders.
"Did you find Branka?" Wynne asks.
"Yeah… Did we tell you about Oghren? Branka's husband? He came to the Deep Roads with us, to find her. Branka was…uh…" Alistair trails off, glancing at me.
"Oh dear. Was she already dead?"
"No, no she was alive. The rest of her House wasn't so lucky, though. Branka had been searching for the Anvil of the Void, which was used to create the golems. She thought if she could put it into use again, Orzammar could fight back against the darkspawn and reclaim their lost thaigs. But the Paragon who created the Anvil, Caridin, had taken it further into the Deep Roads to hide the Anvil and set traps along the way to stop people from reaching it. Many of Branka's household fell victims to these traps. She had almost reached the Anvil herself when we caught up to her."
"Oh? So she found the Anvil?"
"And Caridin himself," Shale adds, standing by the table. "He said that the golems were created by sacrificing dwarven lives; mine included. At first they were all volunteers, such as myself, but when they ran out of volunteers…" she lets us fill in the rest of the sentence ourselves.
"Eventually, Caridin refused to make any more unwilling golems," Leliana continues for her. "So the king had him turned into a golem as well, but without a control rod, because his apprentices didn't have the knowledge they needed to create one. So, Caridin retained his mind, and free will. He and his friends tried to destroy the Urn, but a golem couldn't harm it, so the best he could do was to run away with it and make sure no one could reach it. When we found him and the Anvil, he explained everything to us, begged us to destroy it, but Branka was obsessed; she attacked us, with the help of several golems under her control. Poor Oghren was forced to cut her down himself."
"Where is Oghren, now?" I asked, looking up and down the table.
"Probably drowning his sorrows in ale," Alistair explained sadly. "Poor sod."
"He's asked to come with us, when we leave," Neria added. "He's lost everything here, wants a fresh start on the surface."
"The more the merrier," Wynne agreed. "So, did you have the Anvil destroyed in the end, then?"
"Yes, but before we did, Caridin forged a crown for us to give whoever we want as king, to end the accession war," Neria concluded. "And then he let himself fall into the larva."
Wait WHAT?
"What? Why?" I asked, alarmed.
"He was over a thousand years old, da'len. He'd had enough, I think."
"Like Uthenera?"
"Exactly."
"What matters now is ending the conflict between the nobles so that we can count on Orzammar's support," Morrigan states matter-of-factly.
"True enough," Zevran piped up. "Although I'll admit I'm looking forward to seeing Oghren's face when we reach the surface and somehow DON'T fall into the sky."
The conversation lightens up considerably from that point, but there's more that they're not telling me, I'm sure of it; Alistair's frequent glancing at me gave that away. They've brought back a pack's worth of trinkets from the Deep Roads, though. Perhaps… Another terrible idea begins to form in my mind.
