Enderal first time, impressions

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dyslexicfaser
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20.05.2017 01:50badgesareus hat geschrieben:
That, my friends, is a bakery.
I don't see your images so I assume this is the bakery in the merchant quarter. If so, be sure to visit the "bread lady" in the foreign quarter, whose conversation shouldn't be missed!
I wonder if everyone reading isn't getting the screenshots, in which case I won't bother from here on out.
urst
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your journal is an absolute delight to read; please keep up, your style is awesome :D
also, the pictures are now visible :)
badgesareus
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I'm not seeing any picture, there is just the word "image" in gray. When I go to the topic "can we just appreciate how beautiful enderal is" I can see all the pics posted there. I wonder why I can't see yours, but urst can see them.
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hm :/
in my answer I meant to write "can't see theam either", scrolled down again to the actual post,
and could see the pics :?:
I assumed dyslexicfaser had changed something with the tags/links/something.

since then they are displayed correctly.

strange stuff.
(I always use imgur to post pics here, never had problems)



@dyslexicfaser
could you maybe post a snippet with the image - tags you're using? :)
(using the "code "- tags)
would look like this
Code: Alles auswählen
[img]http://static.giga.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/enderal-logo.png[/img]
dyslexicfaser
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- Jespar is waiting for me in the marketplace, but while I'm in the area, there's a quest for buying back and/or stealing an item from a merchant that he got off a debtor who wants it back. Conveniently, this is labeled 'Ironford's Lute' in his inventory, or I'd have no idea what the heck I was looking for. I suspect I'm missing some backstory to this quest.
I buy the thing mostly because I'm coasting along on the impetus of this being a quest with map markers and stuff, and find out the lute was Ironford's daughter's. And on the back is 1/3rd of a code to her 'treasure casket' that is almost certainly going to contain friendship or lightness of heart of peace of mind or something like that.
Maybe later.

- I happen to run into a nameless guard sighing wistfully and reflecting that they really do take it too easy on 'the scum.'
Enderal, ladies and gentlemen. I only hope I'm not the scum in question.

- Jespar has dressed me up like he's taking me to my quinceanera. Green gowns (with unfortunate stitiching), 'gallant shoes' and fine hats that are the height of Endaralean fashion. I already like this plan.

Bild

- What's less fun is the endless jaunt he takes me on through like 4 loading screens, up to the tippy top of the Sun Temple. I make a note to come back here since this seems like a likely place to find spell-sellers to see if there's a more advanced bear summoning. There's arcane enchanter tables, which is the first I've seen in Enderal. Apparently provincial backwaters like Riverville don't get mages.
Jespar spins a line of bullshit with the guard about me being the owner of the greatest perfume chain in foreign lands, and says the archmage is eager to meet me, and boy wouldn't he be upset if some well-meaning guard delayed us, etcetera. The guard acknowledges that does sound like the archmage, and lets us in.
I kind of want to meet the archmage, now.
Also I'm more than half convinced that this was all entirely unnecessary and Jespar just wanted to have some fun, but he apparently is supposed to be a clandestine spy type, so who knows?

- When I meet Constantine Firespark, it is in the midst of his alchemy lab exploding. This seems like it will set the tone for our relationship.
Constantine mistakes me for Jespar's doxy, and berates him for being the worst spy ever and to not bring his whores in here. Jespar always takes me to the nicest places.
I do wonder if that means Jespar sometimes does show women around the Sun Temple to try and impress them.

Bild

Constantine Firespark is a treasure. He talks like that all the time.

- Apparently having arcane fever is basically becoming a mage, and after putting me in a chair and doing some green magic hoodoo, he drops some world lore on me. Or rather, when he tells me to pick up a book like a nerd, Jespar succinctly summarizes the whole mage thing while browsing through the shit on Constantine's desk in the background. Mages can see other realities, and can bring phenomena from those realities into Enderal. Not just bears, but like, there's some world out there where Constantine's beard is on fire (Jespar's example, not mine), and I can take from that world and make it manifest in this one.
The locals spend a year fasting and praying to get it under control. Both Constantine and I think that's stupid, and he advises for me to go meet one of his fellow... Nehrimese mages? I think Nehrimese. Apparently she can pop my chakras open like it ain't no thing, or something like that.
I am all about quick shortcuts, so I'm down.

- He also thinks that Future Vision is me being under a lot of stress, or possibly drunk.

- Jespar leaves the party. I actually meet up with him later at the tavern for one last quest, which involves having a seat with him at the tavern and rapping with him for a while. It gets pretty philosophical, and is honestly more engaging than anything I got out of my poor packmule of a bodyguard Lydia in Skyrim.
Jespar's thinking is that everyone's on this world for the purpose of pursuing happiness. People dress it up in a lot of fancy words, about religion and purpose and honor and all that, but that mostly just ends up letting them get used by some tyrant or god. At the end of it he pretty much says his work is done and he wishes me the best. There's a boat headed for Kile in the morning, and he's going to be on it.
I can respect the game for definitively ending an engaging companion's involvement in the story in a way that makes sense to the character's core values, but my experience with games and the amount of detail SureAI put into this guy makes me think he'll still have a part to play later. Possibly he'll decide I'm too cute to bail out on, which is only the truth. We'll see.

- I do decide to swing by the cave the Ironford girl left 1/3rd of her code in before I head on to ancient ruins and the main quest. There are holes in the roof to let light in, streams are flowing everywhere, and there's a light mist. It's pretty, of course.
It's also filled with spiders, of course. And an Adept-level chest, the first I've ever found. Since I'm not a rogue-type and lockpicking Adept chests are like 4 memory points up the 'bow + lockpicking' tree, I have to leave it be.
I try swinging a fire-sword into it just in case it lets me bash the lock or something. It does not.
Just to be petty about the damn spiders and their tenaciously locked loot, I devour the spider mom's soul. It heals me back up good, no Crusty Endralean Bread necessary. This is what I bought last level instead of lock picking.

- I also head a few steps up the beach and run into some bad customers.
Apparently 'Soil elementals' in Enderal can cast lightning spells, because why the hell not? I am swiftly turned into a rather pretty corpse. It's been a while since that's happened! For having no legs, those fellows can really roll out.

Bild

The Takeaway:
I'm really starting to like Jespar and I can't decide if I hope he sticks around or if they actually retire him from the story which feels like an appropriate ending for his character. Constantine is also a wonderfully acerbic eccentric. I still don't really have any idea where the plot is going but the character writing in this section is really strong so I don't mind the journey getting there.
Now, stocked up on bread and souls and properly chastised for trying to wander off the beaten path, I'm back to working on the main quest.
Zuletzt geändert von dyslexicfaser am 17.12.2017 19:17, insgesamt 1-mal geändert.
badgesareus
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I can see the pics in the 20.05.2017 13:50 post, but still not in the earlier post. If you did something differently it is working.
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confirming, pics visible, journal awsome :thumbsup:
Zorg
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Hi, you don't have to use memory points for lockpicking (especially if you don't want to be an archer), you can use crafting points instead. You just need 25 lockpicking skill for adept locks (50 for expert, 75 for master). Or you can buy/find lockpicking scrolls, but they are expensive and limited.

Keep it up :)
dyslexicfaser
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Thanks for the heads up on that! I've been buying up Rhetoric and Handicrafts, but I'll start saving my crafting points now.
dyslexicfaser
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- So I'm going off to get my magic unlocked or whatever. The quest suggests I take a 'Myrad.' I wonder what that is?

Bild

I kind of feel like I should be going after this creature with fire and sword, not getting on his back and letting him fly me where I need to go. Who first looked at one of these things and thought, 'Hey, that sure looks comfy. Imma ride it'? The first Myrad tamers must have had balls that clanged when they walked like they were made of the Metal of Ancient Nations.

- Pro tip: I bought the Mark and Recall spells in the Sun Temple. Very handy. Cast the Mark spell in Ark in front of one of the signposts, then Recall there whenever you want.

- I get a little turned around (and then off a cliff) and wind up in a mine instead of the ruin I'm supposed to be going to. I suspect that 'Guarding Cave Trolls' are the next step up the evolutionary chain from regular Cave Trolls, because these guys are hard as iron, particularly the two-troll groups you have to fight once or twice. Generally I can trade a ghost-bear for a troll at a 1-to-1 ratio, but I usually don't have the mana to cast the summon spell twice in one fight. In the two-troll groups I actually have to get up there and fight one mano-a-mano, and that doesn't end well for me a couple times.
The old iron fire-sword is feeling its age; I've switched out for a 'Dagger of Despair', which has a similar level of damage but instead of setting things on fire it swings faster and has a 5% critical bonus. It fits well with my combat style which I call 'frantic wild stabbing in the dark until I hit something'.
Deep in this troll-infested mine, I find a single glimmerdust smuggler. Why? No idea. Is he using the trolls as puppets? Did he feed them some weird potion? Is he their prisoner, forced to make them mushroom-drugs? Have I stumbled onto a troll opium den?
I never find the answer to these questions, sadly.

- The only reason why this little side trip is important is that I find a spellbook to summon a level 16 fire elemental. I am level 10. This seems promising.
The fire elemental doesn't do as much damage in one hit as my old bear, but she shoots little fireballs at enemies from range like cannon shells, and up close she unleashes sprays of flame.
'Guile,' you might say. 'If you love your fire elemental so much, why don't you marry it?'
To which I would tell you, give me time. I'm looking into the local laws on the subject.

- Anyway, after this brief detour (and a few cases of arson-murder among the local bandit population to test out my new pal) (and the reminder that I still suck when I almost die to a pack of wolves again), I do find the ruin I'm looking for.
I meet 'Lashiri' moments after I almost get exploded by a stray 'Qyran dust crystal'. She's a smartly dressed woman in leather rather than... whatever I was expecting. Also, turns out Constantine doesn't have a memory for names.
Lishari explains that she's got some shit going on, which means work for me. Mercenaries popped up, killed Lishari's companions and decided to start burning the magical macguffins they were studying. Turns out her assistant Sveg let them in (I feel like I should thank the mercenary guild for making it a law to always keep all plot-relevant notes on your person), but she doesn't want me to kill him. Presumably she wants the pleasure of squeezing until his head pops off like a grape herself.

- The next segment involves me running around in the dark with a dagger in one hand and a fire extinguishing spell in the other, fighting mediocre mercenaries and putting out fires. I'm not sure if it's a timed puzzle; I suspect it is, since one of the macguffins broke in the middle of the fracas. After that, I left the mercs to my fire elemental and devoted myself to putting out fires just to be on the safe side.
Sveg is actually slowly burning to death when you find him. I'm tempted to let him burn to death if he can't figure out that maybe he should move out of the fire, but remembering Lishari's request I do put him out and then get back to work on the macguffins.
By the time everything is put out and all the mercenaries are dead though, Sveg ran away or teleported or something. Oops.
It's probably fine, what are the odds that decision will come back to haunt me?

- Once all that's taken care of, Lishari does open my mind or settle my magecraft or however that works.

Bild

Is... is it working yet?

She claims 'This might tingle a little' as I slowly rise into the air, explode, and slam down onto the ground face first with a sliver of health remaining.
Lishari swears that wasn't supposed to happen.


The Takeaway:
Lishari's okay. Pretty standard badass mage (who dresses in leather because... I don't know, because she looks great in it?) character. She's not the shining brilliance that is the ancient curmudgeon that sent me on this quest, but she's about at Jespar's level. The Taming the Waves quest is a lot of frantic button mashing on a timer while everything is on fire, and was pretty fun. Not something I'd want to do every main quest, but good for a change.
I'm a little disappointed that it's looking like I'm probably going to be the One Last Hope For The World or The Legendary Knife-Summoner or something like that. I was just assuming that turning into a pretty okay warrior a couple of weeks after landing in Enderal was just a game conceit, but apparently it's baked into the storyline.
Zuletzt geändert von dyslexicfaser am 17.12.2017 19:28, insgesamt 1-mal geändert.
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