Aladuchar - the mad priests haven

We arrived at the remote village of Haven to a less than friendly welcome. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by a guard who made it very clear that we weren't welcome. Not only did this not deter me, the fact that such a small and remote village had a guard posted was clear evidence that something was going on with this place.

My suspicions were soon borne out when we met their head priest, a man by the name of Eirik. We came across him in the village Chantry and he immediately attacked us as soon as we told him that we were looking for Brother Genitivi. It was fortunate that we were on our guard otherwise his attack would have caught us by surprise.


Eirik calls his guards - for all the good it did him

After sending Eirik on a one way journey to meet his "Maker", we found Brother Genitivi in one of the back rooms of the Chantry. It is incredible that he is still alive. Even more incredible is the tale he spun of how the villagers were an ancient cult who revered Andraste. It appears that the only reason the cultists kept him alive was because they wanted to know how he managed to find them and who else knew about the details of his search.

In any event, it appears that the Urn of Sacred Ashes is not only real, but located in a temple of the top of a mountain just a short walk from the village.


Brother Genitivi tells us the incredible tale of Andraste's Ashes

With Brother Genitivi's assistance, we were able to enter the ruined temple which is supposed to hold the Urn containing the ashes of the prophet Andraste. We haven't found it yet and are still searching the temple but considering the amount of armed resistance that we have encountered already, it is clear that there is something here that these fools believe to be worth dying for.


Armed cultists assault us at every turn inside the temple

The greatest shock so far though is that these cultists seem to be breeding dragons! We came across some feeding pens earlier and found a herd of slaughtered cattle. The reason for all the dead bovines was soon apparent when we were set upon by drakes and dragonlings. We were able to hold them off by moving to higher defensible ground and forcing the animals into attacking us one at a time. Bloody things singed my beard though.


Holding our ground at the top of the stairs

Shortly after we were ambushed by those drakes, we came across Kolgrim. Kolgrim is the head of the cultists and, get this, actually claimed that Andraste had returned. Even now, just the thought of it is enough to make me chortle.

Unfortunately, I couldn't contain my laughter at the time either which didn't particularly please Kolgrim. Falsely believing that I was mocking him (just to be clear, I wasn't mocking him although I would have if I had been able to stop laughing) he and his band attacked us. Despite his silly delusion, the man was a strong and capable fighter and pushed us hard.

Kolgrim is offended by my laughter

In the end though, as with all others, he fell before my blade. And with that, I should get moving again. The others look as if they have sufficiently rested from our encounter with Kolgrim and I don't want to hang around too long.