HC: The former is too inconsistent with his character, the latter with probability.
SS: The point, Beleren
HC: We’ve been had.
HC: Someone played at being Daylen Amell to get Marian to accept an important package and charge her with this mission, with a flimsy cover up about his long absence to match.
MS: but Dale-
HC: Wouldn’t have lied to you or left you to grieve this long, if what you’ve told me of him is true.
HC: And more importantly, and I can’t stress this enough, the Warden could never…stop time?
HC: No, it was important to SOMEONE that you carry this with you, important enough that they weren’t willing to take the risk of failing to convince you.
HC: And who would you believe more?
HC: Who would you believe that Jane Shepard also holds in high esteem?
SS: Sabotage
HC: That was my inclination as well. In all honesty, the truth remains to be seen, even to eyes like these.
HC: See, this is an artifact from an otherwise deleted game.
HC: Making it, much like Marian’s blade, irreplicable now that the code of Dragon Age: Origins no longer exists with which to create any further iterations.
HC: To my knowledge and cursory examination this is the same amulet Reflection that was fashioned into Daylen’s Key, and it has all the capacities of bypassing firewalls granted it by legend.
HC: No hidden payload of curses. No suppressing enchantments or caveats.
HC: Not that I’ve ever seen the original first-hand of course, so perhaps it would not hold up to the Commander’s more experienced scrutiny-
HC: But it would seem our mysterious….
HC: Benefactor?
HC: Has dishonestly granted us the genuine article.
SS: For starters, I have no idea how or why this eye was added to the design
SS: And see these quadrants around the edges?
SS: They’re supposed to be for actively tracking the status of the party
SS: It’s not reporting ANYTHING on Daylen, which is to be expected…
SS: But it’s registering John, Cortana, and I as despawned, even though I’m in this very room
SS: And they’re not…
SS:
SS: They’re not awaiting respawn
MS: huh
MS: could be whoever was messing around drawing Andraste’s hairy eyeball on things broke it
MS: and while only an apprentice of metatextual physics
MS: I gather that enduring having itself almost unmade by foreign code and then falling back to us didn’t exactly agree with its constitution lmao
SS: You make a good point
SS: Even if you’re right, Beleren, we shouldn’t risk getting ourselves mangled by a faulty portal on a hunch
MS: unless we ABSOLUTELY have to
MS: honest, and I don’t know if this is the technically correct term, but I’m getting the sketchiest vibes from this thing
MS: I’m tempted to say that the Veil is Thin near it but I don’t want to sound like a pretentious sonneteer
MS: Do we really want to take something from the creep impersonating Dale?
MS: if they want me to trust them so badly
MS: they should know opening with pretending to be my loved one’s ghost does not inspire faith
MS: like, all they had to say was, “hey, I have the solution to your problems we should save the world together”
MS: and they could have joined the Avengers
MS: it would have been that simple
HC: Perhaps they were confident their intentions would not be believed by those they perceived most capable of solving the problem.
SS: Or, rightfully feared the legal repercussions of hoarding something this powerful until the 11th hour and wished to remain anonymous
MS: who would even go out of their way to find this thing
MS: at any other time it wouldn’t even DO anything
MS: besides open a door to the outside that doesn’t even exist anymore???
HC: I need to make a call.
MS: ????
HC: Very suddenly.
HC: And also.
