Mark Plays ‘Dragon Age: Awakening’: Hour 10

In the tenth hour of Dragon Age: Awakening, I AM DONE WITH THIS GAME. I AM SO DONE. (PS: I love you, Dragon Age.) Intrigued? Then you know what to do.

Hour Ten

No. Nope. NOPE.

• Not having all my stuff is SO IRRITATING I HATE IT.
• But look how gorgeous the design is in this place!

• Time and time again, I’m impressed with how these settings are constructed and how they convey specific emotions in me that fit the story. I stepped into this hall full of awe and wonder. What was this place? It’s so huge, and I was eager to find out what was insi–

• What the hell, where did that come from?

• Oh. OH. OH FUCK, WHO IS THAT? WHAT IS THAT THING? He looks unlike anything I’ve seen in this game. And that’s clearly Seranni with him, but who’s the other woman??? Why are they with him? They’re both tainted by darkspawn blood, but they also don’t seem all that excited to… well, leave.
• So I fought both the dragons. Nathaniel died fairly early. But Velanna adapted quickly. Oh, she’s going to be fun to have around!
• Okay, what do I do next? That weird thing is still hanging out above me.

• Oh, you fucker. You just escaped! Okay, so I assumed I would fight him later in this map, so I headed to the next doorway. I found a chest that had ALL OF MY BELONGINGS IN IT. YES. Then I was annoyed again because I had too much stuff I’d picked up along the way, but the wonderful Armass was just hanging out there. What a weird place to decide to set up shop! I didn’t give him a hard time for selling his wares to the darkspawn because I really, really needed him. After selling all the stuff I didn’t need and splitting everything amongst my party, I asked Armaas to be a vendor at Vigil’s Keep. HE AGREED AWESOME. I also found this:

• ROSLIN IS GOING TO LOVE THIS! All right, the door in front of me says, “World Map.” What? There’s nothing left? But where did that creepy dude go? I selected the door, and it immediately went to this unsettling cutscene:

• UTHA? Who is Utha??? Who is this guy? What is his relationship to the Mother? No, wait, what does he need to convince us to do??? Oh, I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.
• This is the first time that a part of the game totally cliffhangered me. Each of the big locations on the map has its own story, and that’s generally wrapped up by the time you’re done with all the quests. NOPE. NOT HERE. NOT EVEN CLOSE. This is fucking brilliant. I am more and more impressed with Awakening, I swear.
• So what was I to do? I guess it’s time to go to the Blackmarsh. Yeah, 10000000% unprepared for every second of this fucking place. Nathaniel IMMEDIATELY started talking about how this place was haunted, that he grew up with stories about how “evil magic” killed nearly every living creature in this place and then it was taken over by MONSTERS. And he wasn’t lying! This place is abandoned, and the only things I came across were Marsh Wolves and BLIGHT WEREWOLVES. Oh god, werewolves. Otherwise, everything else was darkspawn or Fade-related.
• This is, without a doubt, one of the eeriest locations in the entirety of the Dragon Age world. The coloring, the black mists, the creatures, the fact that there are no people around… it’s simply unreal.
• I picked up four quests while poking around: The Trail of Love, The Lost Dragon Bones, The Burden of Guilt, and Tears in the Veil. Yeah, there are huge tears in the Veil everywhere.

• There’s also catgut.

• I can’t even begin to guess what the hell this is for. What? Just… why???

• No, for real, the Blackmarsh is gorgeous. In a weird way, I guess.
• Immediately after this, I found Kristoff. Dead. Aw, well, that sucks. I was hoping to find him alive. As soon as I checked the body, this thing showed up.

• Great. Who the fuck are you? You know we’ll destroy you, right? This thing told me that he had a “gift” from the Mother, and he started to conjure up some ball of energy. The entire screen turned into this:

• Great. So what was he doing to me? If I lost all of my shit again, I was going to find a way to nuke Ferelden and just be done with this whole continent, I swear.
• Wait.
• Why does
• Why does everything look like this
• where are we
• what
• WHAT
• OH MY GOD, YOU ASSHOLE, YOU SENT US ALL TO THE FADE. 
• WE ARE ALL IN THE FADE. WHY DID YOU DO THIS. OH MY GOD.

Done. SO DONE WITH THIS GAME AND THE TORMENT IT MAKES ME FEEL. How the hell am I going to get out of the Fade???

This game, I swear.

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