In the first quest of this Dragon Age 2 Walkthrough, the player will be introduced to the game's core concepts, such as leveling, and controlling your party members. This quest is significant for bridging together the stories of the two Dragon Age games, as you actually start playing in the setting of Dragon Age: Origins, before you jump forward in time to the Free Marches of Dragon Age 2.

1. Before you start the actual game, you will need to go through a quick “battle-tutorial”. You will be given control of the Champion, and have to fight through a few waves of enemies.
2. To attacks the enemies, right click them and use the 1-6 buttons to use your skills to kill them. Keep in mind your melee attack and a lot of your abilities are AOE, meaning they hit more than 1 opponent if they are near you.
3. Note: There are 2 ways to use your skills. Either left click an enemy and then click a number to use your given skill, or click a number to select a skill and then select a target by left clicking on it. Generally, the most comfortable way to use your skills is to right click enemies to automatically move to and attack them, and then click the number of a given skill to use it.
4. After the short tutorial, the actual game will start. Choose the appearance and name for your main character (the Champion which the Dwarf talks about), and start the game.
5. You will have to battle through small groups of enemies as you move through. Use the experience you acquired from the tutorial earlier.
6.  Once you get your first level up, click escape and choose the level-up option (or double click on the leveled-up character’s icon) to distribute your attribute and skill points for any leveled up characters. Keep in mind you can auto-level up characters, but it is a good idea to at least manually level your main character (the Champion) in the way you like.
7. Note: it is a very good idea to level your Mage party member manually, in order to level her healing abilities, as healing is absolutely invaluable in large fights. To do this, first level up her Magic attribute, and then go into the “Creation” Tree in her skills, and level up the healing ability.
8. Note: You will also have your first taste of dialogue choices. Each dialogue choice has a different inclination, meaning that in affects your party members in different ways. For instance, a positive dialogue choice (marked with the blue halo next to the dialogue option) increases your positive merit and makes your “good” party members like you more. Every dialogue choice will lead your party members closer to either becoming your friend or your rival. Each side brings bonuses, so the best thing to keep in mind is to stay consistent with your decisions. For instance, if you are more towards the dark and negative side, you should continue to choose the appropriate dialogue along the way.
9. Continue moving down the path and clearing out enemies, until the cutscene with the large Ogre creature.
10. The Ogre fight is the first time you will have to really use tactics in the game. In this particular case, it is the best idea to bring the Ogre down first quickly, and ignore the lesser enemies until he is dead.
11. To start off, pause the game right after the cutscene, and distribute your attribute and skill points for the 2 leveled up characters.
12. Go back to the game, it is time to start assigning tasks to all your different party members. This will seem strange and tedious at first, but it will get very typical as you progress through the game. Start by clicking on your Tank character (the woman you helped earlier) and have her target the Ogre by right clicking on it. Have your mage character also target the Ogre and start casting the Fireball spell. Finally, go back to your main character and target the Ogre as well.
13. Unpause the game, and use your main character’s skills to bring down the Ogre. Make sure to take down the lesser enemies as soon as you’re finished killing him. As long as you took the healing spell for your Mage party member earlier you should survive this fight quite easily.
14. Note: also keep in mind you have health and stamina potions to use in sticky situations. These can be accessed on the rightmost part of your action bar, or through your inventory.