Ch. 15: In Which Olivia and Bethany Pull a Heist and Queen Anora is a horrible person
That night, Olivia looked around the guest room Arl Eamon had given her. "Oh, this is nice." She poked happily at the neatly-folded pile of her spare clothing. It was clean and smelled faintly of lavender.
"Want to know what else is nice?" asked Bethany, coming up behind her. "You can get a hot bath. I've missed that. Rivers just aren't the same."
Olivia turned around to find that Bethany did, indeed, have wet hair.
"That does sound amazing," she admitted. "I've got one more thing to do tonight before I can relax, though."
"What?" asked Bethany curiously. "Did Arl Eamon tell you about something else to investigate?"
Olivia shook her head. "No." She pulled out her spare armor, which was made of dark leather rather than shiny silver metal, and began to put it on.
"Well, what is it then?"
"Remember what Templars use to chase down escaped mages?"
"Phylacteries, yes."
"Well, the ones from the Ferelden Circle are kept here in Denerim, in the cellars beneath one of the Chantries. So," said Olivia, pulling on her second gauntlet and strapping a spare sword to her back. "I'm going to break in and get rid of mine."
"Isn't someone going to notice that?"
"No, because I'll switch it out for something that looks like a phylactery but isn't one. With luck, no one will ever even know someone got in."
"When are we ever lucky?"
"I scoped out the security earlier and it's completely lax. Also Zevran's covering for me, just in case." Olivia smirked. "Want to come?"
"That would probably be a good idea, yes." She sighed. "Mother is going to say that you're leading me to a life of crime."
"You're an apostate, you're living a life of crime just by existing." Bethany laughed.
Followed by Bethany, Olivia headed down to the kitchens. "Hey," she said casually to the cook.
"What are you doing here?" the elven woman asked irritably.
"Do you have any animal blood I could have?"
The cook stared at her. "…why?"
"I need to do a thing."
The cook looked suspicious. "You're a mage. Is this a blood magic thing?"
"No!" said Olivia quickly. "It's a practical joke thing."
The cook still looked skeptical. "We've got some from the meat we get."
"I only need enough to fill up your standard Templar phylactery bottle."
"I fail to see how that could be a practical joke."
"I'll be laughing."
"You aren't planning on doing any horrible things that will make the Templars likely to fall for this joke, are you?"
"No, but you never know when they'll turn on you. Besides, if I do this I'll be able to quit the Wardens and go get a life after the Blight without anyone hunting me down and making me come back."
The cook rolled her eyes. "You know what? Fine. I don't even believe in you humans' stupid Maker and Chantry, anyway. I'm really more of a Mythal person." She went over to the icebox and pulled out a jar of blood. "Here. Don't tell anyone I was involved."
"Thank you!" Olivia took the jar and stuck it in her backpack, skipping off down the corridor.
Olivia let herself and Bethany into the Chantry, both of them pulling hoods up to cover their faces as they entered. "This way," she whispered, creeping along to a small door at the back of the room, which she opened to reveal a staircase downward.
At the bottom of the stairs, there was a doorway. Bethany tried the doorknob. "It's locked. But I don't see a keyhole."
Olivia looked more closely at the door. "This seems familiar." She looked intently at the door. "Sword of the Maker, tears of the Fade." The lock clicked and Olivia hurriedly cast an ice spell on it. The door opened.
"How did you know that?" asked Bethany, astounded.
"I guessed. That's the same password to open the door to where the phylacteries are held in the Tower." They walked through the door. As Olivia had suspected, there was a second door just beyond it. She pulled out her lockpicks and opened the door after a little fumbling around with the lock. "I never would have expected my previous experience breaking into phylactery chambers would come in handy."
The room beyond was filled with lines of shelves holding bottles of blood. Olivia found the A's and began scanning the shelf until she saw Amell, Olivia. She walked quickly over to the bottle and picked it up.
Olivia opened her backpack and pulled out an empty flask, as well as the jar full of animal blood that she had gotten from Arl Eamon's cook. She carefully used a knife to loosen the wax seal on the phylactery without damaging it and opened the bottle, pouring the blood inside into the empty flask that she had brought with her before taking a rag and carefully cleaning the remainder of her blood out of the bottle. Olivia opened the jar of animal blood and poured it into the now clean and empty phylactery bottle, putting the lid back on and carefully sticking the seal back down without damaging it. Olivia put away the rest of her materials and returned the bottle to the shelf, looking at it carefully. It looked exactly the same as it had before her tampering. She turned to Bethany. "Let's go."
The two women left the phylactery chamber, the two doors locking themselves behind them. Olivia and Bethany hurried back to Arl Eamon's estate and snuck in through the back, going up to Olivia's room, where they quickly took off the clothes they had been wearing for the break-in. "Now I think I'm ready for that bath," said Olivia.
The next morning after breakfast, everyone gathered in Arl Eamon's study to plan their next move. Before they could really discuss anything, however, a distraught elven woman with a thick Orlesian accent ran into the room. "You have to help me!"
"Um, who are you?"
"Queen Anora's maid. My mistress's father has locked her up in the Arl of Denerim's estate and I fear for her life!"
"Oh this is perfect! Now Anora will be on our side!" exclaimed Arl Eamon. "Er, I mean, poor Anora, you must rescue her!"
Olivia sighed. "Okay, let's go."
The maid snuck them into the Arl's estate disguised as guards and led them to the room where Anora was imprisoned. There was a disturbing shimmering bluish barrier over the door. "That can't be good," said Olivia.
"Who's there?" called a voice from inside the room.
"It's me, your majesty," said the maid. "I've brought the Grey Wardens to rescue you."
"That would be very nice, but there appears to be a bit of a complication. As you can probably see, the door has been blocked by magic. You'll need to kill the mage to get through, and he's probably with Arl Howe- they like to hang out in the dungeons."
"Right," said Olivia. "We'll be back later."
The maid stayed behind while the rest of them found their way into the dungeons- through Arl Howe's bedchamber. "He has an entrance to the dungeons in his room? That's disturbing," said Olivia.
"Look what I found." Leliana held up a sheaf of papers. "These have the Grey Warden seal on them. I wonder how Howe got them?"
When they entered the dungeons, the guard jumped, moving toward them. "Who are…" his words ended in a gurgle as a hand shot out from the cell he had just passed, jerking him toward the bars and twisting viciously before grabbing the key from off the guard.
A man exited the cell. "Hey!" exclaimed Alistair. "I know you! You're a Grey Warden! Riordan, right?"
The man nodded. "The Wardens in Orlais sent me and several others to help, but when we arrived in Denerim Arl Howe's men attacked us- I was locked up in here and the other Wardens were killed."
"I suppose these are yours, then," said Leliana, holding up the papers she had found.
"Oh, yes, thank you," said Riordan, taking them. "I should probably go escape the rest of the way, now."
"Go to Arl Eamon's estate," said Alistair. "That's where we're staying." Riordan nodded and left back the way they had come. Olivia spared a moment to wonder whether or not the mostly naked Warden was going to steal some of Arl Howe's clothes. Probably.
Riordan was not the only prisoner that they found while wandering around the dungeons. There was a young nobleman on the rack in the torture chamber, Templar locked up in one of the cells who, based on his feverish lyrium withdrawal ravings, had apparently had been captured and imprisoned while attempting to capture Jowan, and an elven man who had apparently been there ever since before Arl Urien died. They let everyone out, the nobleman swearing to tell his family about what had happened and convince them not to support Loghain- something that Olivia suspected wouldn't be very difficult- and the elf hurrying back home- he seemed very relieved when Olivia mentioned that Shianni was alright. The Templar was too incoherent to go anywhere, and the most they could do was leave the cell door open and agree to bring his ring to his sister- Leliana took it and promised to make sure that she got it and tell her where he was so she could go get him. The Templar didn't seem to really process much of that.
They found the mage in an empty room with Arl Howe and a few soldiers, all of whom they had to kill. Arl Howe died gasping. "I deserved better." That attitude probably had a lot to do with what a horrible person he was.
Once the mage, and, coincidentally, the Arl, was dead, they were able to go let Anora out of the room she had been locked in. "What took you so long?" the queen asked. Olivia rolled her eyes.
They had made it almost the entire way out of the estate when they were suddenly surrounded by a very large group of soldiers- at least a score of them- led by Ser Cauthrien. "Warden! I am arresting you for murdering Rendon Howe and all his guards. Surrender, and they might not kill you."
"I was just rescuing Queen Anora!" said Olivia, pointing to her. "She was a prisoner here."
Ser Cauthrien looked confused. "Your Majesty?"
"She wasn't, I was fine," said Anora quickly.
"Well, I'm not rescuing you again," said Olivia as Ser Cauthrien pointed her sword at her.
Only Olivia and Alistair got arrested. Everyone else was left to angrily escort Anora back to Arl Eamon's estate with them while the two Wardens were taken to Fort Drakon.
