Last weekend ended up being a Diablo-fest on the PS4, having not played the game for ages, I was keen to see how the various updates had impacted on it…and of course to take a peak at the totally non-existent Cow Level. After gorging myself on Diablo, I felt that I needed a different RPG-fix to finish off the weekend…Dragon Age: Inquisition was promptly booted up.

I hadn’t played Inquisition since talking about it at length in February when I realised that it should have been my Game of the Year for 2014.

What I didn’t say in that think-piece is that when I took the below screenshot, I was experiencing quite a bit of trouble, but at that point I didn’t know what the cause of the problem was.

You see, wherever I went in the world, whatever opponents I faced, my lead character Maxwell would collapse to his death as soon as an enemy so much as tickled him with a feather. Any enemy, regardless of their level, would inflict this punishment upon him. The other members of my team – normally Cassandra, Varric and Solas – were always able to battle on as they always had done, just with the added complication of having to revive the fallen Maxwell, normally on more than one occasion during a fight.

While playing the game back in February, I busily looked at all of the armour that Maxwell was wearing, looked at his accessories and couldn’t see anything which would lead to his habit of dying at every given opportunity. I’d recently reached Skyhold at this point, and thought that I might have infused my armour or those numerous accessories with a rune or effect that would explain Maxwell’s death. I switched his gear around a few times, but every time I went to fight, I would experience the same result. Death, and a frantic scramble with the others on my team to revive Maxwell before we all died. After writing the above mentioned article, I decided to put the game back on the shelf for a while.

I told myself I would return and solve the mystery soon, while in the mean time, I spent many hours Googling to find some help. Sadly I couldn’t find any reference my grizzly combat experience, I had searched in the vain hope of finding a possible bug that I might explain my problems. And so, Inquisition stayed on my bookcase, teasing me with the threat of constant death.

But last weekend, after blasting through Act II of Diablo III with my my wizard, I was in the groove of how RPGs worked, and braved the fates by taking myself back to the lands of Orlais and Ferelden. I checked my armour, barely glanced at my weapons, investigated my accessories and set out to fight…and promptly fell flat on my face (well, Maxwell did, I just groaned in dismay). I ordered the troops back to Skyhold, some investigation was required.

I thought about the situation, coming back to it a few months after the initial frustrations does a lot to clear the mind. During my quiet contemplation a thought struck me like a thunderbolt. I hadn’t fully examined the various effects that my weapons were blessed (or cursed as might be the case) with. I looked at my daggers…and found this devilish piece of work lurking in my hands.

I had been haunted for so ever long by the mysterious case of the always dying Maxwell and…it was my very own dagger that was causing me to receive 300% damage from all sources! The worst thing? I had crafted this blade myself…I had created the cause of my own downfall. Why didn’t I see this before? Probably because I didn’t think my own weapons would be capable of having that much of a negative impact upon myself.

I’ve found the dagger and the cause for my deaths. I’ve now switched back to a normal dagger without any murderous effects, but I don’t know what to do next with it. For now, I have stored it in my loot chest at Skyhold, but I welcome suggestions for where to ultimately leave this dagger. Is there a massive pit of doom anywhere I can throw it? Can I give it to an NPC as some sly evil scheme? Let me know what do with this evil dagger in the comments.