The plight of Redcliffe.

And so the travelers reach Redcliffe where they hope to enlist the aid of Earl Eamon, Alistair's uncle and the most respected Arl in Ferelden who commands an authority only second to the high-king himself. Seeing as King Cailan is now snuffed and Loghain merely being an usurper that plunged Ferelden into civil war with a Blight on the doorstep, surely Arl Aemon is the right person to talk some sense into people. But the travelers find Redcliffe in severe disarray. They're brought before Ban Teagan, the younger brother of Arl Aemon, who's explained to be a fair, evenhanded and just ruler. (In Inquisition he's mysteriously a money-grubbing and blame-shifting bastard.) Teagan and Majhika are quickly sidetracked because mutual attraction sparks into love at first sight. Unspokenly however, they realise their folly and they return to the business at hand. Corpses spill from Castle Redcliffe each night and there are almost no villagers left to kill anymore. There must be a demon at work, they decide. Teagan explains that tonight, the final battle for Redcliffe will be fought, because after that there won't be enough villagers left to mount anything that can remotely be called a defense. The travelers agree to help the villagers through the night, although Morrigan and Sten think that Redcliffe should just be left to the demons.

First off, the travelers try to talk sense into Dwyn the dwarf, who is rather stubbornly not of a mind to help the villagers with their last stand. He took Majhika's kicking down his door rather well though. After some mental gymastics, Dwyn gives up. Majhika's superior reasoning makes him want to be anywhere but around her and if that means fighting corpses, then so be it.

Redcliffe is home to be best blacksmith ever, according to the villagers. Sadly, the man is a drunk and not inclined to help out because reasons. Majhika however has little problems with getting the man to open up and he explains that his daughter is a handmaiden to the Arlessa and still in Castle Redcliffe. She's the smith's most precious thing in the world and the thought of his daughter probably having met a gruesome fate is too much for him to bare. Majhika promises him to rescue his daughter and that's enough for the smith to stop drinking and to start smithing.

In the Redcliffe tavern, they're pointed to a suspicious elf. Rumor has it that the knife-ear is probably in lieu with the evil forces that hold Redcliffe in a stranglehold. Majhika once again gets her mental gymnastics on and has no trouble into cornering knife-ears into a position where the only thing left for him to do is to spill the beans. It seems that he's being paid by agents of Loghain to keep an eye on the coming and goings of those in Redcliffe Castle and that he was caught out by what's happening just as anyone else. Why he has to report on what's going on in Redcliffe isn't quite clear, but Loghain seems to understand that the one person who can twarth his claim to the throne of Ferelden is indeed Arl Aemon. Majhika orders the elf to join the forces defending Redcliffe. Knifey accepts, but only because he understands that not doing so will mean a fate much worse.

Then there's the matter of the tavern-keep who has made cowardice an artform. Off course, the man has little in the way of defense against Majhika's razor sharp and fast tongue. She's about as effective talking people bedlam as she is casting spells and either way people have to concede to her when subjected to one of her skills. So the tavernkeep feels compelled to join the last defense of Redcliffe, much to Sten's approval and Morrigan's glee.

The last task to take care of is the matter of Ser Perth and his knights of Redcliffe. No matter what happens, this stalwart band of warriors are sworn into the defense of Arl Aemon and his holdings and they'll not shirk their duty. They would feel a lot better if they had amulets from the Maker to help through the night though. Leliana is against the idea; surely the Maker's relevance is proven in the fact that he's not doing anything. Majhika doesn't care. After a quick rountrip to the chantry and back, the Knights of Redcliffe have their symbols and they feel a lot better going into the night. Ignorance, Majhika reasons, is bliss. Other than that, she wants to maximize her chances of living through the night and actually meeting Arl Aemon.

Convinced that she has done all that she could to organize the defense of Redcliffe, Majhika waits out nightfal. Soon after, the corpses spill from Castle Redcliffe and Redcliffe is steeped in battle, blood and death for the night. Everybody fights like lions and when the sun rises, the people of Redcliffe stand victorious. Whatever demon is commanding the forces of the undead, Teagan feels that the demon was dealt a severe blow and that if there's a time to infiltrate the castle, this is it. But not before Majhika is bombarded to being the champion of Redcliffe.

It seems that there's a secret passage into the castle, Ban Teagan conveniently only thinks about now. He weasels out of it with a weak excuse when Majhika questions him about it and before it can go any further because Majhika is most displeased with Teagan, Arlessa Ysold appears. Rather redundantly she screams that something is very wrong at the castle. Teagan, she explains, is to return to the castle alone, as demanded by the demon who has Redcliffe in his clutches. Rather suspiciously, the demon isn't interested in killing Ysold, Aemon or their son Connor at all. He's just interested in killing everybody else. Teagan decides to go with Ysold and asks of the travelers to infiltrate the castle through the secret passage. Majhika is not keen on the idea, but Teagan insists. And so, the travelers infiltrate the castle.

They emerge from the secret passage into the castle's dungeons where they find that of all people incarcerated in there, Jowan is one of them. Off course, this is the moment where Majhika takes the piss out of the hapless Bloodmage. Jowan explains that he was hired by Loghain to poison Arl Aemon. His way in was scouted by Loghain, who had gotten wind that Connor, the son of Arl Aemon, has magic. Ysold wants to keep that fact a secret and so she hired a mage, unknowingly to her groomed by Loghain, to help Connor master and mask his magic. But before the trouble with the demon starts, Jowan was found out as the one who poisoned the Arl and thrown in the dungeons. He can only conjecture that Connor unwittingly invited a demon in. Having heard enough, Majhika leaves Jowan to rot in Castle Redcliffe's dungeon. It is clear to her that no more than ever, getting to Arl Aemon is imperative. With Jowan behind bars until someone remembers that once, long ago, they imprisoned someone, that will probably go a lot easier.