Dragon Age: Origins Walkthrough - Orzammar - Ortan Thaig

We've got some more fighting to do, but we'll get a break from the darkspawn. Walk past the dead darkspawn and the ogre. Turn into the tunnel ahead and you'll meet some giant spiders and crawlers. These guys aren't tough, but you need to make sure that they aren't able to web one of your allies and take them out. If you can keep them in a fair fight, it will be easy though. 

Advance to the next tunnel and you should see some spiders rushing out to the next cavern. There's a big ogre fighting a bunch of spiders. You can just hang back and let them soften each other up. The spiders should probably win against the ogre. I got bored and just used blizzard though. Three spiders will drop down right on top of you as you step out. Just hang back and take care of them.

There is another big battle happening on the left side of the cavern. There are a few hurlocks trying to hold out against some spiders. They should lose in a little bit. You can just wait out the fight if you want and then ambush the spiders with a good cone of cold. Push forward and turn to the left. There's an alpha shriek guarding a chest. You might as well kill him and get some extra loot.

Before you leave, search the little offshoot tunnel to the right. There's a warrior's grave back here. Click on it to search for the inscription. We need to do this if we want to get the last part of the Topsider's Hilt.

Once you're done in here, you can go to the left.

There's a large poisonous spider here and it will run away when it sees you. Chasing this giant spider will lead you into an ambush in the little tunnel. The big problem is that a group of spiders drops down right at the entrance and they will probable surround your mage. Try to have at least one warrior hang back to protect them. The spiders themselves aren't too much of a threat.  

Loot the area and move outside. There are about five spirits and a stone golem waiting here. They'll attack once you approach. The spirits themselves aren't much of a threat to your warrior or tank. The real threat is the stone golem, which has a fair deal of health and can do large area of effect attacks against you. These can really hurt your mage and your rogue, so stay alert and try to keep him focused on your tank. If you can keep it distracted in melee combat, then your warrior and your rgoue should be able to deal a fair bit of damage quickly.

Once the golem falls, you shouldn't really have too much of a problem with the remaining spirits. They're just warriors.

Advance a bit further. There is another spider ambush, but four spiders shouldn't be a problem as long as you rested for a moment after the golem. You can move a bit further and reach the open area to get to the big part of Ortan Thaig. The ruined city has a lot for us to see.

Just ahead, there's a chest for the Lost to the Memories quest. You should spot Ruck further ahead too. He's actually a little important, so lets chase him a bit into the cave. He'll yell and cause a bunch of spiders to spawn behind you. There are eight of them, but they tend to attack in two waves. You should be fine.

You can chase Ruck into the cave and get to his little home. If you're nice to him, you should be able to persuade him that you won't attack. He's a decent merchant and it's nice to have someone that you can sell stuff to down here. He should also mention that Branka moved on, that the darkspawn have generally left to go to the archdemon. So we should at least know what we're facing.

If you want, you can go over to the back section of the ruined city. The altar for Asunder is here. It's guarded by another golem and five spirits. Just handle them like we did the first. The altar is also one of the four magical sites of power for the mages' collective, so make sure you click it if you picked up that quest.

When you're ready, you can cross either of the two bridges here.