Starting chapter 25 right now and while she met the Howes, there was no real confrontation yet. They are now on their way to kill the mother.

 

The confrontation takes place towards the end of that sequence. I liked The Keening Blade, but it doesn't compare well to Victory at Ostagar. It's at the point where I consider Maude the main reason to read the fic. As for Victory at Ostagar, there have been too many hints for me to believe that there's going to be an 100% happy ending. May Loghain end up gracing the business end of that plot point.

 

Finished it and while it does get better, especially the Kirkwall stuff with her finally getting the recognition she is due, it was still aggravating for a lot of the story. I really, really hope Anora pulled some shit while they were away so that Maude can finally kill her, something she should have done roughly twenty chapters ago, really hae that conniving bitch. She wasn'tall that likable in Victory at Ostagar either but here she is simply detestable.

But yeah, despite being practically angry for 2/3 of the story, I still enjoyed it. Maude is fucking awesome and such a great, larger than life character. Other side characters are enjoyable too, Loghain was surprisingly likeable unlike his counterpart in victory at Ostagar. Alistair seemed to be portrayed as a tool though, which i found weird but it worked without really demonizing or bashing him.

So yeah, 4/5 story for that. Still hope Maude goes on a rampage sometime and does something really big to stop being regarded as the Dragonslayer's wife.

 

Going to stop derailing this thread and sorry for the doppelpost but holy shit, the last few chapters.

Spoiler

Orlais is pretty much done and we see the world reacting to this massive change in power as nations prepare for a Blight and to carve themselves good chunks out of Orlais for themselves.

Am really curious as to see what Bronwyn and co will do.

 

Spoiler

Inb4 Ferelden becomes the new world power.

 

Spoiler

It would be pretty awesome if Bronwyn and her army were to conquer a lot, especially seeing that the majority of people would actually prefer her over their leadership

 

Yeah it will interesting to see how fast it develops. The last chapter seems to indicate that the blight will be ended fast but I am not willing to bet anything on that.
We are shown that most of the leaders, while opportunistic, are able to perceive the great threat the the darkspawn are and are willing to work together.

Just one thing that always confused me: The whole broodmother and their respective races thing is completely illogical. There are strong indications that Ogre existed since the first blight but the Qunari arrived only 400 years ago.

 

That could easily be explained as "The darkspawn used the Deep Roads to reach wherever the Qunari originally came from".

 

Isn't it canon that the Deep Roads can't/don't reach under the oceans to the Qunari homelands? It's not incredibly likely that a single Qunari female ventured to Darkspawn territory before/during the First Blight.

What indications are you talking about though, Erandil? I wouldn't count seeing an ogre in a cut scene of the First Blight conclusive proof.

 

The beginning of the game with the dwarven kingdoms fighting darkspawn? And the codex entries always seemed to imply that ogres where an old enemy. I mean the Qunari arrived only after the last blight right?

And yeah the Deep Roads connect the whole of Thedas but that seems to be all. I am not even sure if there are connections with Par Vollen.

 

I wouldn't trust a game cutscene for things like that, mostly because it's doubtful the people 'directing' it would take that sort of thing into account. The codex entries...I can't recall the ones on Ogres. So who knows. Maybe prior to the arrival of the Qunari proper there were only three Qunari broodmothers or something who were kept far away from the 'front lines' and ogres were all the more terrifying for it, thus their enhanced reputation making it seem like they had a greater presence than they actually did.

But this is all conjecture, and not all that relevant to Arsinoe's story.

 

Am I the only one who feels like the mirror/elves thing is completely unnecessary and serves no real purpose? Not only is it a new plot thread, and we really have enough of these, it will also add a shitload of OC´s and is not even remotely Cannon based.
This fic really suffers from the endless attaching of new "cool" ideas.

 

I don't really like it either since all the Dalish elf stuff seemed to be solved a while back with their new land. I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt for now and see where it goes though since I've liked just about everything else in the story.

Also, it is cannon based. Maybe not the still living elves, but traveling through Eluvians to 'realms beyond the Fade' happened in Witch Hunt DLC and in the Dalish elf origin, a city is seen through the Eluvian.

Source

 

Agreed, but I'm more worried about the guns and the wyvern-mount.

 

Seems like we are nearing the end... maybe 2-3 chapters more and we should see the epilogue. I liked the last few chapters with the whole different opinions between the two armies (each thinking that the other is more or less useless). It gives the country bashing that happened earlier a better perspective and provides a believable answer to why the other leaders acted like they did.

So if you want to reread the thing before the end you should start soon.. over 1,1 million words take a while to geb through.

 

Still going very strongly, imo. Am really curious on how the meeting between the various leaders and Bronwyn is going to go, especially since those don't think much of her and vice versa, not to mention that is probably pretty pissed right now.

 

First ending posted, now only the epilogue and the alternative ending remain. Am sad to see this wrapping up. The weekly updates were something I enjoyed immensely and I would have continued reading this so much longer.

 

Is it worth reading for somebody who knows absolutely nothing about this fandom?

 

Yes, yes it is. One of the best stories I have read.

 

New chapter is up. Nice little epilogue. Only the alternate ending is left. I'm glad I stumbled across this. Hell of a story.