This is a hilarious read. Can't wait to read more! 
- Archmage Arantheal wants to rap with me when I get back.
- I haven't even started talking to him, and he's already speaking cryptically in Capital Letters. It's going to be one of those conversations, I can just tell.
We have a bit of a walk and talk.
It looks like everything's getting a little Mass Effect in here. Not only is The End Coming, but the world of Enderal seems to be moving in cycles. Civilizations rise, then there's a big calamity, wizards rise up as gods, get thrown down by plucky heroes, and then shortly thereafter everything just fucking dies? And this has happened hundreds of times? That's rough.
Turns out I was right about having some Grand Destiny (I'm 'Prophet'), but it looks like I'm only one of many. He's one too ('Ruler'). That's cool. Long story short, I'm now in tight with the Big Religion of the land. But he wants to make this all official-like with the other Keepers, and makes me take an initiation test.
- Is it just me or is the Archmage's son probably the protagonist of the last game, the total conversion mod for Oblivion?
He just feels like a protagonist. Fighting for injustice and self-determination, befriending his enemies, killin' gods.
- While I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what this initiation is all about, I am left wishing the Archmage had a leetle more ultimate power. What's even the point of being in the Special Secret Capital Letter Club with him if he can't just appoint me to some high post? What a gyp.
So he sends me out to the Heartlands border to get this shit done with, but I decide to do a little sidequesting first.
- I've had a quest sitting in my journal for ages to go steal a bank key from a guy's druggie sister that takes me to Undercity. Normally I'm not one for the thief and Dark Brotherhood-like quests I expect to find down there, but I kind of want to check it out anyway.
Why are the thief guilds literally underground in games like this? Little on the nose about the class structure to actually find the deepest darkest hole you possibly could to toss the Pathless down into, don't you think?
- I know I say this a lot, but Enderal is really pretty. Admittedly, it swiftly gets less pretty later on when I get into the slums and the 'fleshmaggot sufferers', which are like beggars but more tragic. This feels like Enderal in a nutshell.
An interesting bit of cultural difference I notice right away; up there with the 'sunchildren', the lady in the Dancing Nymph is called a prostitute. The lads down in Undercity just call them whores.
I think this is indicative of a serious class divide, and- what do you mean 'why is this the first thing I notice?' It just... I...
- Moving on, on the way to the other quest I run into a lady trying to score Red Vynroot to help ease the suffering of the guys with fleshmaggots and y'know what, that sounds like something I could get behind. I shell out 300 gold pennies, turn them in to her with a turnaround time of about 1 minute, and get a whole bunch of exp.
It would be pretty cool if there were fewer of these 'fleshmaggot sufferer' NPCs down here after this little quest, it would make me feel like I made a bit of a difference with my altruism. Well, not really altruism, I was mostly just in it for the exp, but y'know... it'd be nice.
- Anyway, I go work some Rhetoric on the lady, Sila, who instantly folds and tells me the location of the hidden key. In and out, I can dig it.
Unfortunately, the skillbook merchant is gone when I come back topside and a person's worth of blood is splashed everywhere. Only now, without easy access to skillbooks all in one merchant, do I realize my folly. What I had, now that it's gone.
Also when I return to check in with Sila I find a horrifying thing called an Aborted Pus Creature in her house. It's like an armored centipede as wide around as a small man. Is the hideous thing a guard creature? A pet? Do the people of Enderal make a habit of subjugating the most monstrous creatures on the continent? The last time I saw a creature this scary I was paying a man 25 pennies to ride it.
I admit, when I first walk in and get a faceful of green goo I assume someone heard about the bank key and put out a hit on Sila. And is using nightmarish monsters to assassinate people.
- Clues in the house lead me to a small, burned down fishing village. With a pile of burned-black corpses piled up on the pier like macabre driftwood.
Milbert and Sila fled to the city years ago. Why are these still like this? Who even bothers to stack up the corpses of their victims into a funny pile like that?
- Also it appears that while I was traipsing around Ark and fighting her hideous pet pus beetle, Sila managed to abscond with her brother in broad daylight and drag him all the way out here. I took a Myrad, did they take a Myrad? Does the unconscious guy you have slung across your shoulders with a bloody knot on his head count as a passenger or baggage?
I will mention that up until this point Sila seemed bitter but not really dangerous, until she dragged her brother out here and locked him in a man-sized cage. Now, I know that feeling, I have a sibling myself, but I control my urges and so should she.
Does glimmerdust cause violent paranoia? That shit sounds dangerous.
Things... don't end well for Sila, and Milbert sounds a little broken up about it. I actually get to keep the key they were feuding over. Go figure.
- Well, that's enough lazing around I guess. Time to go ... beat up some fellow initiates? I'm not sure how initiation into a religious order works.
The Takeaway:
As far as RPG scenarios go, 'save the world' is an old, old staple, but I admit I'm kind of interested to see where this is going. There being multiple Dragonborn equivalents is a great twist and makes me feel much better about my new pals than, say, the Blades from Skyrim.
The Divide and Conquer quest was a bit of a sour note. The characters feel kind of schizophrenic, and I still don't know what's up with that horror in Sila's room. Does she feed it the souls of door-to-door salesmen? Oh well, they can't all be gems.
- I haven't even started talking to him, and he's already speaking cryptically in Capital Letters. It's going to be one of those conversations, I can just tell.
We have a bit of a walk and talk.
It looks like everything's getting a little Mass Effect in here. Not only is The End Coming, but the world of Enderal seems to be moving in cycles. Civilizations rise, then there's a big calamity, wizards rise up as gods, get thrown down by plucky heroes, and then shortly thereafter everything just fucking dies? And this has happened hundreds of times? That's rough.
Turns out I was right about having some Grand Destiny (I'm 'Prophet'), but it looks like I'm only one of many. He's one too ('Ruler'). That's cool. Long story short, I'm now in tight with the Big Religion of the land. But he wants to make this all official-like with the other Keepers, and makes me take an initiation test.
- Is it just me or is the Archmage's son probably the protagonist of the last game, the total conversion mod for Oblivion?
He just feels like a protagonist. Fighting for injustice and self-determination, befriending his enemies, killin' gods.
- While I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what this initiation is all about, I am left wishing the Archmage had a leetle more ultimate power. What's even the point of being in the Special Secret Capital Letter Club with him if he can't just appoint me to some high post? What a gyp.
So he sends me out to the Heartlands border to get this shit done with, but I decide to do a little sidequesting first.
- I've had a quest sitting in my journal for ages to go steal a bank key from a guy's druggie sister that takes me to Undercity. Normally I'm not one for the thief and Dark Brotherhood-like quests I expect to find down there, but I kind of want to check it out anyway.
Why are the thief guilds literally underground in games like this? Little on the nose about the class structure to actually find the deepest darkest hole you possibly could to toss the Pathless down into, don't you think?
- I know I say this a lot, but Enderal is really pretty. Admittedly, it swiftly gets less pretty later on when I get into the slums and the 'fleshmaggot sufferers', which are like beggars but more tragic. This feels like Enderal in a nutshell.
An interesting bit of cultural difference I notice right away; up there with the 'sunchildren', the lady in the Dancing Nymph is called a prostitute. The lads down in Undercity just call them whores.
I think this is indicative of a serious class divide, and- what do you mean 'why is this the first thing I notice?' It just... I...
- Moving on, on the way to the other quest I run into a lady trying to score Red Vynroot to help ease the suffering of the guys with fleshmaggots and y'know what, that sounds like something I could get behind. I shell out 300 gold pennies, turn them in to her with a turnaround time of about 1 minute, and get a whole bunch of exp.
It would be pretty cool if there were fewer of these 'fleshmaggot sufferer' NPCs down here after this little quest, it would make me feel like I made a bit of a difference with my altruism. Well, not really altruism, I was mostly just in it for the exp, but y'know... it'd be nice.
- Anyway, I go work some Rhetoric on the lady, Sila, who instantly folds and tells me the location of the hidden key. In and out, I can dig it.
Unfortunately, the skillbook merchant is gone when I come back topside and a person's worth of blood is splashed everywhere. Only now, without easy access to skillbooks all in one merchant, do I realize my folly. What I had, now that it's gone.
Also when I return to check in with Sila I find a horrifying thing called an Aborted Pus Creature in her house. It's like an armored centipede as wide around as a small man. Is the hideous thing a guard creature? A pet? Do the people of Enderal make a habit of subjugating the most monstrous creatures on the continent? The last time I saw a creature this scary I was paying a man 25 pennies to ride it.
I admit, when I first walk in and get a faceful of green goo I assume someone heard about the bank key and put out a hit on Sila. And is using nightmarish monsters to assassinate people.
- Clues in the house lead me to a small, burned down fishing village. With a pile of burned-black corpses piled up on the pier like macabre driftwood.
Milbert and Sila fled to the city years ago. Why are these still like this? Who even bothers to stack up the corpses of their victims into a funny pile like that?
- Also it appears that while I was traipsing around Ark and fighting her hideous pet pus beetle, Sila managed to abscond with her brother in broad daylight and drag him all the way out here. I took a Myrad, did they take a Myrad? Does the unconscious guy you have slung across your shoulders with a bloody knot on his head count as a passenger or baggage?
I will mention that up until this point Sila seemed bitter but not really dangerous, until she dragged her brother out here and locked him in a man-sized cage. Now, I know that feeling, I have a sibling myself, but I control my urges and so should she.
Does glimmerdust cause violent paranoia? That shit sounds dangerous.
Things... don't end well for Sila, and Milbert sounds a little broken up about it. I actually get to keep the key they were feuding over. Go figure.
- Well, that's enough lazing around I guess. Time to go ... beat up some fellow initiates? I'm not sure how initiation into a religious order works.
The Takeaway:
As far as RPG scenarios go, 'save the world' is an old, old staple, but I admit I'm kind of interested to see where this is going. There being multiple Dragonborn equivalents is a great twist and makes me feel much better about my new pals than, say, the Blades from Skyrim.
The Divide and Conquer quest was a bit of a sour note. The characters feel kind of schizophrenic, and I still don't know what's up with that horror in Sila's room. Does she feed it the souls of door-to-door salesmen? Oh well, they can't all be gems.
Last edited by dyslexicfaser on 17.12.2017 20:29, edited 1 time in total.
macguffin
But please don't take that as encouragement to dig through your thesaurus.
Seriously, this forum has been nearly dead for months and you've brought it back to life!
- I grab a Myrad and hook up with the leader of the initiation and the two initiates further northwest.
The level of snide I'm receiving is impressive even for Enderal, where hateful xenophobia is usually the default expression. Signet Leader Jorek's voice actor in particular does a great job of conveying his opinion of my general worthlessness as a human being.
One of the initiates is nice, seems to be impressed at the way I took on an entire mercenary company and saved the day like a big damn hero the other day.
My knowledge of story structure suggests someone is going to die off before this quest is over. They're wearing bright red; they are literal red shirts. I just can't decide if it'll be the mean one (less visually interesting than the girl with the face tattoo) or the nice one (pathos), or even the boss and we have to fight our way out without him. And then the mean one would probably blame everything on me; he's kind of like that.
- It seems that the forest we're going into is home to a particular breed of giant mushroom that makes arcane fever worse.
Why is it always mushrooms around here?
- Now, you might look at the following screenshot and think 'how much wine did you have before setting out, dyslexicfaser?' but this is what visions look like.
Right, so Arentheal explained what this is. Apparently as the Prophet I'm getting visions from previous cycles, which are basically Future Vision because the cycles are just that similar. Everything is the same. Predestination. Creepy.
Hypothetically the lines said by the mysterious voices will make sense only later in retrospect, but I'm sure I'll forget about them by then.
- Later, we meet a friend! He appears to be suffering from a bad case of pink-eye. He does a lot of chanting about 'She wanted to leave, she wanted to leave, now she'll never leave', and there's a corpse in a pine box he's building for her.
- This is what Red Madness looks like: I'm not sure if it's named for the color of the eyes, the caked blood around the mouth, or the general transformation into murderous psychopath.
Dunwar (mean initiate) blows him away with a lightning bolt, and it's kind of hard to fault him for it.
The bossman faults the hell out of him for it, though, saying some apothecarius would give their left arms for a chance to study a live victim of the disease. You'd think they'd be warier given the way Yero (possibly not a victim of Red Madness, but they don't know that) exploded and killed 30 people.
I almost feel bad for the novice, but I'm sure he'll say something that annoys me the next time he opens his mouth.
- So we get to the sacred spot, and the bossman drops the fact that the gods are all dead. I knew this already, and most of the non-Enderal world believes it too, but this is news to the initiates. Dunwar flips his shit so hard I'm half surprised the ruin doesn't land upside down.
He blames the nice initiate for being a witch, the bossman for being drunk, the order for taking in Pathless like us two assholes (me and the nice one), and the world for being pointless and meaningless now that the gods are dead. Bossman shouts him down in proper drill sergeant style, but I almost have to be impressed by the size and shine of this stupid kid's brass balls.
- There's a kind of suspicious stammer in the bossman's voice when he tells us to drink down our [Strange Potions] that sets off warning bells in my head.
My vague worries are immediately proven prescient when I hit the deck and my vision fuzzes out.
- I wake up in a prison cell. I'm actually kind of surprised this hasn't happened to me before, you know? It's just been that kind of week.
At this point I'm about evenly split between 'Is this a vision quest?' and 'Is the Signet Leader trading in nubile young Keeper initiate flesh?'
- I'm locked in with a new guy named Aixon. At first his ramblings sound like it's the latter and I'm going to have to go it slave gladiator style for a while, but then I add another possibility to the pile: 'Is Aixon one of my past selves, or a past Prophet, or something like that?' because he is talking kind of mystical and like this always happens, in between whimpering about somebody called the Suppressor.
He posits a kind of interesting idea: he says that I died a week ago, sunk to the bottom of the ocean tied to my old peasant buddy. This whole thing has been a fever dream. Magic shit, you know?
I don't think that's actually true, but
- I'm not entirely sure how I get out of the cell. Like, the wall actually changed into a door for me.
Aixon is just as confused as I am, and I'm really impressed with his voice actor right around this part. He absolutely nails a voice half 'stunned like a poleaxed cow' and half 'dare I hope?' with a touch of 'why couldn't I do that?' thrown in for good measure.
Right around when instead of fighting prison guards I'm stabbing ghosts, I'm going with 'Vision quest thanks to a dodgy potion' but I'm not entirely dismissing 'Temporarily dead (will probably get better).'
- I'm reduced to a knife and a hunk of Endralean Crusty Bread (just like old times!) but the prison didn't remove my ability to summon a fire elemental that one-shots the ghosts.
There's corpses and ghosts and hanged people and traps. No Suppressor, though. I die once to a spiked ball trap, but otherwise this segment is a little spooky but not very hard. I find a skull labeled 'Regret' which I have no idea what to do with. I end up dropping it in a minute, when the exit door sends us right back into our prison cell. My knife disappears.
- Aixon starts pouting just because we're probably going to be tortured or whatever for trying to escape, like a baby.
I decide to catch some shut eye while we waited for the Suppressor, but three days later still nothing happened. Afterrubbing my face against every wall, clicking on everything in the room and sleeping in Aixon's bed, I decide to punch Aixon in the face.
- Apparently, that advances the quest.
Aixon isn't sure if I figured it out or just got pissy, but he drops the act. He's me - somehow. All the little whimpering, scared, stupid feelings I'm keeping deep down inside while I play the big hero outside.
Okay.
- I wake up, and Jespar is waiting for me. That's nice.
Except I swiftly deduce we're entering Inception territory, right around when Jespar's voice changes, other characters start teleporting into the room, everyone turns into beings of pure red air, and the room gets all... like this:
- I'm still dreaming, but it's pretty obvious something's hijacked the dream. And it is not impressed with me.
Which, duh. I walked face first into a spiky ball trap like a minute ago and died. I die to wild animal attacks all the time.
- They namedrop The Cleansing, which is probably just The End of The World in smoke person speak.
- Then I actually wake up! Calia (the nice initiate) greets me.
This has been one hell of a ride, Calia. One hell of a ride.
- You can get into her backstory (she killed the family that took her in too, maybe! We're like murder sisters!), but I'm still processing main quest stuff right now and have no time for Calia.
Also, Dunwar's probably not going to wake up. Ever. Probably bossman's fault for laying that 'the gods are dead' bit on him before making him fight his inner demons.
Bummer, I guess, but mostly at this point I'm just glad it's him and not me.
The Takeaway:
Enderal's weird dream game is strong. No idea where this is going now; there's been a few leads dropped here and there. Peghast, Signet Stone, these new smoke people. Who knows? First things first, probably go meet up with Arantheal again. Maybe yell at him some, for not filling me in on having to fight evil smoke monsters from beyond our reality.
At the moment though, I'm just going to have Calia take me on a tour of the sun temple and try not to think about how my insecurities are apparently a cringing white guy with an emotive voice.
The level of snide I'm receiving is impressive even for Enderal, where hateful xenophobia is usually the default expression. Signet Leader Jorek's voice actor in particular does a great job of conveying his opinion of my general worthlessness as a human being.
One of the initiates is nice, seems to be impressed at the way I took on an entire mercenary company and saved the day like a big damn hero the other day.
My knowledge of story structure suggests someone is going to die off before this quest is over. They're wearing bright red; they are literal red shirts. I just can't decide if it'll be the mean one (less visually interesting than the girl with the face tattoo) or the nice one (pathos), or even the boss and we have to fight our way out without him. And then the mean one would probably blame everything on me; he's kind of like that.
- It seems that the forest we're going into is home to a particular breed of giant mushroom that makes arcane fever worse.
Why is it always mushrooms around here?
- Now, you might look at the following screenshot and think 'how much wine did you have before setting out, dyslexicfaser?' but this is what visions look like.
Right, so Arentheal explained what this is. Apparently as the Prophet I'm getting visions from previous cycles, which are basically Future Vision because the cycles are just that similar. Everything is the same. Predestination. Creepy.
Hypothetically the lines said by the mysterious voices will make sense only later in retrospect, but I'm sure I'll forget about them by then.
- Later, we meet a friend! He appears to be suffering from a bad case of pink-eye. He does a lot of chanting about 'She wanted to leave, she wanted to leave, now she'll never leave', and there's a corpse in a pine box he's building for her.
- This is what Red Madness looks like: I'm not sure if it's named for the color of the eyes, the caked blood around the mouth, or the general transformation into murderous psychopath.
Dunwar (mean initiate) blows him away with a lightning bolt, and it's kind of hard to fault him for it.
The bossman faults the hell out of him for it, though, saying some apothecarius would give their left arms for a chance to study a live victim of the disease. You'd think they'd be warier given the way Yero (possibly not a victim of Red Madness, but they don't know that) exploded and killed 30 people.
I almost feel bad for the novice, but I'm sure he'll say something that annoys me the next time he opens his mouth.
- So we get to the sacred spot, and the bossman drops the fact that the gods are all dead. I knew this already, and most of the non-Enderal world believes it too, but this is news to the initiates. Dunwar flips his shit so hard I'm half surprised the ruin doesn't land upside down.
He blames the nice initiate for being a witch, the bossman for being drunk, the order for taking in Pathless like us two assholes (me and the nice one), and the world for being pointless and meaningless now that the gods are dead. Bossman shouts him down in proper drill sergeant style, but I almost have to be impressed by the size and shine of this stupid kid's brass balls.
- There's a kind of suspicious stammer in the bossman's voice when he tells us to drink down our [Strange Potions] that sets off warning bells in my head.
My vague worries are immediately proven prescient when I hit the deck and my vision fuzzes out.
- I wake up in a prison cell. I'm actually kind of surprised this hasn't happened to me before, you know? It's just been that kind of week.
At this point I'm about evenly split between 'Is this a vision quest?' and 'Is the Signet Leader trading in nubile young Keeper initiate flesh?'
- I'm locked in with a new guy named Aixon. At first his ramblings sound like it's the latter and I'm going to have to go it slave gladiator style for a while, but then I add another possibility to the pile: 'Is Aixon one of my past selves, or a past Prophet, or something like that?' because he is talking kind of mystical and like this always happens, in between whimpering about somebody called the Suppressor.
He posits a kind of interesting idea: he says that I died a week ago, sunk to the bottom of the ocean tied to my old peasant buddy. This whole thing has been a fever dream. Magic shit, you know?
I don't think that's actually true, but
- I'm not entirely sure how I get out of the cell. Like, the wall actually changed into a door for me.
Aixon is just as confused as I am, and I'm really impressed with his voice actor right around this part. He absolutely nails a voice half 'stunned like a poleaxed cow' and half 'dare I hope?' with a touch of 'why couldn't I do that?' thrown in for good measure.
Right around when instead of fighting prison guards I'm stabbing ghosts, I'm going with 'Vision quest thanks to a dodgy potion' but I'm not entirely dismissing 'Temporarily dead (will probably get better).'
- I'm reduced to a knife and a hunk of Endralean Crusty Bread (just like old times!) but the prison didn't remove my ability to summon a fire elemental that one-shots the ghosts.
There's corpses and ghosts and hanged people and traps. No Suppressor, though. I die once to a spiked ball trap, but otherwise this segment is a little spooky but not very hard. I find a skull labeled 'Regret' which I have no idea what to do with. I end up dropping it in a minute, when the exit door sends us right back into our prison cell. My knife disappears.
- Aixon starts pouting just because we're probably going to be tortured or whatever for trying to escape, like a baby.
I decide to catch some shut eye while we waited for the Suppressor, but three days later still nothing happened. Afterrubbing my face against every wall, clicking on everything in the room and sleeping in Aixon's bed, I decide to punch Aixon in the face.
- Apparently, that advances the quest.
Aixon isn't sure if I figured it out or just got pissy, but he drops the act. He's me - somehow. All the little whimpering, scared, stupid feelings I'm keeping deep down inside while I play the big hero outside.
Okay.
- I wake up, and Jespar is waiting for me. That's nice.
Except I swiftly deduce we're entering Inception territory, right around when Jespar's voice changes, other characters start teleporting into the room, everyone turns into beings of pure red air, and the room gets all... like this:
- I'm still dreaming, but it's pretty obvious something's hijacked the dream. And it is not impressed with me.
Which, duh. I walked face first into a spiky ball trap like a minute ago and died. I die to wild animal attacks all the time.
- They namedrop The Cleansing, which is probably just The End of The World in smoke person speak.
- Then I actually wake up! Calia (the nice initiate) greets me.
This has been one hell of a ride, Calia. One hell of a ride.
- You can get into her backstory (she killed the family that took her in too, maybe! We're like murder sisters!), but I'm still processing main quest stuff right now and have no time for Calia.
Also, Dunwar's probably not going to wake up. Ever. Probably bossman's fault for laying that 'the gods are dead' bit on him before making him fight his inner demons.
Bummer, I guess, but mostly at this point I'm just glad it's him and not me.
The Takeaway:
Enderal's weird dream game is strong. No idea where this is going now; there's been a few leads dropped here and there. Peghast, Signet Stone, these new smoke people. Who knows? First things first, probably go meet up with Arantheal again. Maybe yell at him some, for not filling me in on having to fight evil smoke monsters from beyond our reality.
At the moment though, I'm just going to have Calia take me on a tour of the sun temple and try not to think about how my insecurities are apparently a cringing white guy with an emotive voice.
Last edited by dyslexicfaser on 17.12.2017 20:31, edited 1 time in total.
- Arantheal also had the weird smoke monster dream, and agrees that they're connected to the Cycle. And also are assholes.
I also get into some of his backstory, what being locked up for years,then getting out just in time to dive into this End Of The World nonsense is like. He's of the opinion that 'What would I go do instead? A life as a fisherman?'
He's a rock, this guy.
- Constantine is also still awesome. His mouth speaks the words that are in my heart.
- The Order needs some time to get a fancy ceremony together. Fingers crossed for getting to put on a pretty dress and dance with all the boys, but given what I know of this religious order it's probably going to be a bunch of solemn chanting about how superior they are to the shitty Pathless, and the less said about those foreign dogs the better.
If this ends with me becoming a werewolf, I'm gonna be pissed.
- Jespar also sends a note saying he'd like to see me again, and to meet him at night in a deserted watchtower on the outskirts of Ark for what, I am sure, are perfectly innocent reasons.
It is not night time, and Enderal doesn't let you just fast forward time with 'T', so I wander about on my own for a while. There are a lot of farms and windmills and things around Ark, so I decide to check those out.
- I wander around for a few minutes. A flyer told me I could find fantastical adventure! if I went out to a little island in Ark's bay, but that turned out to be a bust. Highwaymen, you know how it is. Usually a mugging isn't the peak of excitement, but, well. Enderal.
I'm a little sad I didn't get to go on the adventure, though. Whoever wrote that flyer seemed like the type to Talk In All Caps and be Constantly Excited About Everything.
- I wandered into a cute little farming village. Hay everywhere, goats and cows and... farm things.
A particular door declared itself to be 'Lower Haystacks.' I open it up without giving it another thought, thinking it might be a granary or a saloon or something.
It is nothing like that thing I just thought.
- I am immediately beset by a Vatyr and his two 'Mad Rat' companions. I've run into Mad Rats once before, when I wandered into a vault in the sun temple that I'm probably supposed to visit for a quest thing at some point, and they are surprisingly dangerous. With preparation, I can fight two at once; blindsided, and with a Vatyr too? I know what move to make here.
I run, screaming, for the door only to emerge into bright sunlight with the Vatyr on my tail and at a fraction of health. I die.
Then the game reloads, and I die again.
Exiting a building auto-saves the game, natch.
Third time's the charm, though, and I manage to pop a potion and start life-draining the Vatyr until it's him, not me on the ground.
- Well, I figure once my heartrate slows down, might as well investigate since I'm here. The place is absolutely covered in mushrooms. I find 20 of one kind, and a handful of other types. If I was an alchemist type, I would probably be excited right now.
A hidden trapdoor drops me into a fight with two more Vatyr, and some kind of boss Vatyr with heavy armor on. His armor is one of those magical set pieces, boosting two-handed weapons for Vandal types. More potions and life-draining, plus fire elemental backup, pulls me through on this one but it's a close thing. Then a couple more Vatyr, a little wandering around and Vatyr again, before I pop up out of an inauspicious manhole into the Farmer's Coast. More idyllic countryside and scenic farms.
... Did I stumble into a quest halfway through? What the heck is going on here? Why are there a dozen goatman monsters camped out in some random farm? One that's obviously still in use? Are they, like, Vatyr sympathizers? Are the Vatyr noble rebels, unfairly discriminated against by the surface worlders?!
I'd totally join their secret club if they didn't keep trying to violently murder me every time I show up.
- I still have more time to kill until evening when Jespar's quest becomes available, and I see there's a lighthouse and a mine nearby, so I make for them.
The lighthouse is abandoned. And is set on a river, not any kind of ocean, which kind of defeats the purpose? I don't know, who am I to tell people they can't build lighthouses wherever they want to.
There's a trapdoor with a slightly soggy vault beneath it.
Inside is what is apparently the new evolution of the Lost Ones; this zombie guy is a mage. He's throwing fire around everywhere and he's got some serious HP, but he gets into a slugging match with my elemental so I'm free to jab him in the buttocks repeatedly until he dies.
- The mine is covered in highwaymen. There must be at least six to eight of them just hanging around the entrance, shooting the shit.
This is the second or third time this has happened. Are there even any mines still controlled by the government, or non-evil mining consortiums, or anything? Considering this mine is a silver and gold mine, why are these blokes still highwaymen and not wealthy landowners by now?
Maybe they don't want to sell out and are staying real, I don't know. OG highwaymen.
- Putting down an elemental and watching from cover like a pussy, I'm reminded that this game has a neat little mechanic where if a bandit goes down, sometimes their buddies will have a line like, 'That was my friend, you bitch! I'll kill you!' or something like that.
That's cool. I always felt like in Skyrim the bandits weren't properly recognizing me for the blood-stained god of war that I am, even after I turn 15 of their 18 man bandit camp into gently steaming corpses with lightning or whatever.
Aside from my elemental reminding me that her fireball ability has knockback by interacting weirdly with the game physics and launching a highwayman twenty feet across the room and onto a balcony, the other notable thing here is the guy sitting on the gold vein:
A Marauder.
This guy is clearly a next gen bandit. Decked out in steel armor, shield and rune mace, and with his inferior buddy distracting my elemental, he reminds me of the first hour of the game when Enderalean banditos were the stuff of nightmares.
I have to break out my old standby of 'backpedal while power attacking and life-tapping' and he still comes within a hair of taking me out with just a couple swings of that mace.
... I think I'm going to go sell off all this stuff, visit Jespar, and then never go wandering again. If the picturesque farms are this dangerous, what am I going to do when I have to actually fight the End Of The World? The smoke monster guys are probably going to show up on fire-breathing dragons.
The Takeaway:
I must have hit a new plateau in levels or something, because the game is clearly stepping up its, well, game. Sometimes it'll throw weakling highwaymen at me, but sometimes now it's magical skeletons or bandits armed to the teeth and trying to beat me like a pinata.
Possibly the game thinks I was able to buy skill books for the 30+ unused skill points I've accumulated and is strengthening its enemies accordingly, but I don't know how that would be possible. Adept skillbooks (the ones that get you up to 50 in a skill) are expensive as hell. I pick up and sell everything and make gear to sell for extra cash when I find the ingots and spare parts, and I'm still broke as a joke.
I also get into some of his backstory, what being locked up for years,then getting out just in time to dive into this End Of The World nonsense is like. He's of the opinion that 'What would I go do instead? A life as a fisherman?'
He's a rock, this guy.
- Constantine is also still awesome. His mouth speaks the words that are in my heart.
- The Order needs some time to get a fancy ceremony together. Fingers crossed for getting to put on a pretty dress and dance with all the boys, but given what I know of this religious order it's probably going to be a bunch of solemn chanting about how superior they are to the shitty Pathless, and the less said about those foreign dogs the better.
If this ends with me becoming a werewolf, I'm gonna be pissed.
- Jespar also sends a note saying he'd like to see me again, and to meet him at night in a deserted watchtower on the outskirts of Ark for what, I am sure, are perfectly innocent reasons.
It is not night time, and Enderal doesn't let you just fast forward time with 'T', so I wander about on my own for a while. There are a lot of farms and windmills and things around Ark, so I decide to check those out.
- I wander around for a few minutes. A flyer told me I could find fantastical adventure! if I went out to a little island in Ark's bay, but that turned out to be a bust. Highwaymen, you know how it is. Usually a mugging isn't the peak of excitement, but, well. Enderal.
I'm a little sad I didn't get to go on the adventure, though. Whoever wrote that flyer seemed like the type to Talk In All Caps and be Constantly Excited About Everything.
- I wandered into a cute little farming village. Hay everywhere, goats and cows and... farm things.
A particular door declared itself to be 'Lower Haystacks.' I open it up without giving it another thought, thinking it might be a granary or a saloon or something.
It is nothing like that thing I just thought.
- I am immediately beset by a Vatyr and his two 'Mad Rat' companions. I've run into Mad Rats once before, when I wandered into a vault in the sun temple that I'm probably supposed to visit for a quest thing at some point, and they are surprisingly dangerous. With preparation, I can fight two at once; blindsided, and with a Vatyr too? I know what move to make here.
I run, screaming, for the door only to emerge into bright sunlight with the Vatyr on my tail and at a fraction of health. I die.
Then the game reloads, and I die again.
Exiting a building auto-saves the game, natch.
Third time's the charm, though, and I manage to pop a potion and start life-draining the Vatyr until it's him, not me on the ground.
- Well, I figure once my heartrate slows down, might as well investigate since I'm here. The place is absolutely covered in mushrooms. I find 20 of one kind, and a handful of other types. If I was an alchemist type, I would probably be excited right now.
A hidden trapdoor drops me into a fight with two more Vatyr, and some kind of boss Vatyr with heavy armor on. His armor is one of those magical set pieces, boosting two-handed weapons for Vandal types. More potions and life-draining, plus fire elemental backup, pulls me through on this one but it's a close thing. Then a couple more Vatyr, a little wandering around and Vatyr again, before I pop up out of an inauspicious manhole into the Farmer's Coast. More idyllic countryside and scenic farms.
... Did I stumble into a quest halfway through? What the heck is going on here? Why are there a dozen goatman monsters camped out in some random farm? One that's obviously still in use? Are they, like, Vatyr sympathizers? Are the Vatyr noble rebels, unfairly discriminated against by the surface worlders?!
I'd totally join their secret club if they didn't keep trying to violently murder me every time I show up.
- I still have more time to kill until evening when Jespar's quest becomes available, and I see there's a lighthouse and a mine nearby, so I make for them.
The lighthouse is abandoned. And is set on a river, not any kind of ocean, which kind of defeats the purpose? I don't know, who am I to tell people they can't build lighthouses wherever they want to.
There's a trapdoor with a slightly soggy vault beneath it.
Inside is what is apparently the new evolution of the Lost Ones; this zombie guy is a mage. He's throwing fire around everywhere and he's got some serious HP, but he gets into a slugging match with my elemental so I'm free to jab him in the buttocks repeatedly until he dies.
- The mine is covered in highwaymen. There must be at least six to eight of them just hanging around the entrance, shooting the shit.
This is the second or third time this has happened. Are there even any mines still controlled by the government, or non-evil mining consortiums, or anything? Considering this mine is a silver and gold mine, why are these blokes still highwaymen and not wealthy landowners by now?
Maybe they don't want to sell out and are staying real, I don't know. OG highwaymen.
- Putting down an elemental and watching from cover like a pussy, I'm reminded that this game has a neat little mechanic where if a bandit goes down, sometimes their buddies will have a line like, 'That was my friend, you bitch! I'll kill you!' or something like that.
That's cool. I always felt like in Skyrim the bandits weren't properly recognizing me for the blood-stained god of war that I am, even after I turn 15 of their 18 man bandit camp into gently steaming corpses with lightning or whatever.
Aside from my elemental reminding me that her fireball ability has knockback by interacting weirdly with the game physics and launching a highwayman twenty feet across the room and onto a balcony, the other notable thing here is the guy sitting on the gold vein:
A Marauder.
This guy is clearly a next gen bandit. Decked out in steel armor, shield and rune mace, and with his inferior buddy distracting my elemental, he reminds me of the first hour of the game when Enderalean banditos were the stuff of nightmares.
I have to break out my old standby of 'backpedal while power attacking and life-tapping' and he still comes within a hair of taking me out with just a couple swings of that mace.
... I think I'm going to go sell off all this stuff, visit Jespar, and then never go wandering again. If the picturesque farms are this dangerous, what am I going to do when I have to actually fight the End Of The World? The smoke monster guys are probably going to show up on fire-breathing dragons.
The Takeaway:
I must have hit a new plateau in levels or something, because the game is clearly stepping up its, well, game. Sometimes it'll throw weakling highwaymen at me, but sometimes now it's magical skeletons or bandits armed to the teeth and trying to beat me like a pinata.
Possibly the game thinks I was able to buy skill books for the 30+ unused skill points I've accumulated and is strengthening its enemies accordingly, but I don't know how that would be possible. Adept skillbooks (the ones that get you up to 50 in a skill) are expensive as hell. I pick up and sell everything and make gear to sell for extra cash when I find the ingots and spare parts, and I'm still broke as a joke.
Last edited by dyslexicfaser on 17.12.2017 20:32, edited 1 time in total.
26.05.2017 01:58dyslexicfaser wrote: I must have hit a new plateau in levels or something, because the game is clearly stepping up its, well, game. Sometimes it'll throw weakling highwaymen at me, but sometimes now it's magical skeletons or bandits armed to the teeth and trying to beat me like a pinata.
Just curious, dyslexicfaser , what path(s) you have pursued using your memory points. Also, you might consider the side quests which you probably have in your journal such as the egg collecting & wanted bounties to gain gold. And some of the best weapons and equipment can be found in dungeons which are not quest-related; there are many dozens of those. Some are at your fingertips, such as the crypt accessible at the Ark cemetery.
26.05.2017 19:38badgesareus wrote: Just curious, dyslexicfaser , what path(s) you have pursued using your memory points.
I had vague plans to aim for light magic as a side thing. That didn't survive contact with the game.
Then when I noticed how great summoning was, I went in hard for Sinistrope. Still haven't found any of the damage-self-to-hurt-others or psionic spells, I just do summoning.
I'm at level 15, with a roughly even split between Sinistrope and Keeper.
I'll probably dip into Blade Dancer at some point, once I've gotten all the 'makes stuff hurt less' perks in Keeper.
Also, you might consider the side quests which you probably have in your journal such as the egg collecting & wanted bounties to gain gold.
Hmm, I've done 3 playthroughs but I've never tried those disciplines. Seems like you have to be a shield/block type to get the most out of keeper, not my thing. I've read some players say that bound (summoned) weapons can be powerful, but if you summon creatures probably not much left to summon weapons -- I don't even know if you could summon both at the same time. Get loot, sell loot, buy skill books -- piece of cake!
27.05.2017 02:57badgesareus wrote: Hmm, I've done 3 playthroughs but I've never tried those disciplines. Seems like you have to be a shield/block type to get the most out of keeper, not my thing.
I've read some players say that bound (summoned) weapons can be powerful, but if you summon creatures probably not much left to summon weapons -- I don't even know if you could summon both at the same time.
- Jespar's midnight tower tryst is nice, but marred somewhat by bugginess. There are points where Jespar just stands there staring, and if you autosave and reload in the middle it can bork the chain and he wanders off back towards Ark without another word.
He's a pretty good host if you ignore that. He offers you wine or a smoke, and asks about the trial and something about your past. In exchange he opens up some about a past... conquest? It sounded more like the lady conquered him for a few years until she started getting a little too intense for him and he bailed.
Turns out he's sticking around, and it sounds like Constantine likes the fact that he's not entirely a blithering idiot, so he's probably still got a job.
- Unfortunately, the time still isn't right, so I have to go wandering again. I have a quest taking me out past Farmer's Coast on the trail of someone named Max Niceblood, so I figure, what the hell. I already tracked him to a barn outside Ark but he slipped the net, so now I have to go hiking up into the mountains after him.
About 15 steps past the Myrad post, though, I get shaken down for coin. Bandits, man, they're everywhere in this country. Now, if he'd come up with some sob story about fleshmaggots, sure, but this guy is being way too smug for me to give him 200 pennies.
I reflect that this may have been a mistake when the vagrant sneaking up behind me buries a steel battleaxe in my spine.
- I die an additional two times in various permutations as I work out how the fight goes. The two bandits in front use sword and shield, and naturally draw the eye, while there's an archer off to the side. But honestly, I wish every bandit in the world was an archer, because as long as you keep moving they don't really hurt. It's the battleaxe guy doing all the damage. As long as he dies, the fight is doable.
- Flush with victory and not having any intrusive bits of metal in me, I wander into this cave. It's got more bandits in it of course, but at this point I expect bandit attacks like spring rains. More importantly, there's this glowing crystal sprinkled everywhere, including this pillar of the stuff here. There's also some old ruin-y bits around, carved faces and the like, like this was some old Pyrean worship site or something.
But sadly, nothing hinting at the history of the place as I'm going through the bandits' personal things after the murder. I know they're bandits, not archeologists, but still. Really inconvenient, guys.
- After that is a distillery with actual non-murdery human people (but no extensive dialogues or quests or anything), and there's also like a barn or something. I wonder what it's-
Oh, nohohohoooope. If it's anything like Lower Haystacks, I want no part of it.
- I go up into the mountains a bit and - after fighting more bandits - find another note from Max. He congratulates me on getting him to run away, and notes the jewelry chest near the note is from him, in honor of my achievement. Also, the one who sent me after him is mad because he refused her bed, he wanted me to be clear on that.
He might as well have signed the note, 'See you in the next game, sucker!' but if he wants to give me a few shiny baubles when he was clearly ahead of me every step of the way, sure, I can play along.
I go home, deposit my money in the bank (did I mention? There's a bank in Ark, and it accrues something like 2% interest daily) and sleep it off until Arantheal is ready to see me, which is pretty quickly.
- I am welcomed with the bon homie I've come to expect of the Order.
- Arantheal has a speech about tradition and togetherness and living on after the death of the gods and stuff like that. Calia and I do some light chanting. I don't think the dried up old bag of dicks that is the Order's Fourth Sigils are buying what he's selling, but it's a good speech.
And just like that, I'm raised to the First Sigil, something like the sixth highest rank in the land. I make the rounds of the little church, but nobody wants to hear my acceptance speech.
- My old buddy Sigil Leader Jorek from the trial is here, front row center. He's in fine, sarcastic form, too; he has a way of dragging out his vowels (and the 's' on Prophetess') that really makes me feel his disdain, it's kind of great. He wanted to let me know that he likes Calia better. I figured, but thanks for coming out, Jorek.
I also get some backstory on him; he's old initiate-buddies with Tealor Arentheal and the 'Tuchessa', which I guess is a rank like Grandmaster? But he didn't fight in the war like they did and changed the subject really quick on me. So he's stuck at 'Sigil Leader' rank, whatever that may be.
I wonder if this is setting him up for a jealousy character arc, and if imma have to kill him later.
- Some other named Sigil lady in the second row also chews my ass like Kilean tobacco. Do I know the history of the order (no), do I know the hundredth verse of the Chant the initiates need to do every morning (hell no), do I know why only x-y-zed people can enter the chapel (gimme a break, lady), do I know what some moldy war hero said to another after suppressing a riot (lady, I can't even remember the names you just finished telling me. Hell, I can't remember your name!). And so on, and so forth. My boots defile the chapel by standing here, etcetera.
Well... I have Future Vision powers? So... so there. Yeah.
Between Jorek and this lady it's like my disapproving parents are here in person even after I murdered them, it's sweet.
- The armory informs me that even if I'm Arantheal's special boy, I'm still paying normal prices. Swell.
I also get a free set of Keeper armor. It's bog-standard steel stuff but (as far as I can tell) can't be improved at the workbench, and therefore I will never use it.
I wonder if the temple armory would be weird about it if I tried to sell it.
The Takeaway:
Boy I sure am glad I get to be in your secret club, Arantheal. I kind of want to go find those occasional unusually racist Endraleans who give me that line about 'my thousand husbands' and call me 'coalwoman', put on my Keeper gear, and see if anything changes.
Regardless, the wait is over and I can get back on the main quest stuff, now. I can either go see a man about a corpse that will somehow or other lead me to a rite that would protect the Order and the Guard from the Red Madness. That 'Sigil Stone' stuff that got namedropped a few quests back. Or I could go do.. something, about a discovery in the Heartland woods? That Sigil Stone stuff seems more immediately pressing, so I decide to go for that first.
He's a pretty good host if you ignore that. He offers you wine or a smoke, and asks about the trial and something about your past. In exchange he opens up some about a past... conquest? It sounded more like the lady conquered him for a few years until she started getting a little too intense for him and he bailed.
Turns out he's sticking around, and it sounds like Constantine likes the fact that he's not entirely a blithering idiot, so he's probably still got a job.
- Unfortunately, the time still isn't right, so I have to go wandering again. I have a quest taking me out past Farmer's Coast on the trail of someone named Max Niceblood, so I figure, what the hell. I already tracked him to a barn outside Ark but he slipped the net, so now I have to go hiking up into the mountains after him.
About 15 steps past the Myrad post, though, I get shaken down for coin. Bandits, man, they're everywhere in this country. Now, if he'd come up with some sob story about fleshmaggots, sure, but this guy is being way too smug for me to give him 200 pennies.
I reflect that this may have been a mistake when the vagrant sneaking up behind me buries a steel battleaxe in my spine.
- I die an additional two times in various permutations as I work out how the fight goes. The two bandits in front use sword and shield, and naturally draw the eye, while there's an archer off to the side. But honestly, I wish every bandit in the world was an archer, because as long as you keep moving they don't really hurt. It's the battleaxe guy doing all the damage. As long as he dies, the fight is doable.
- Flush with victory and not having any intrusive bits of metal in me, I wander into this cave. It's got more bandits in it of course, but at this point I expect bandit attacks like spring rains. More importantly, there's this glowing crystal sprinkled everywhere, including this pillar of the stuff here. There's also some old ruin-y bits around, carved faces and the like, like this was some old Pyrean worship site or something.
But sadly, nothing hinting at the history of the place as I'm going through the bandits' personal things after the murder. I know they're bandits, not archeologists, but still. Really inconvenient, guys.
- After that is a distillery with actual non-murdery human people (but no extensive dialogues or quests or anything), and there's also like a barn or something. I wonder what it's-
Oh, nohohohoooope. If it's anything like Lower Haystacks, I want no part of it.
- I go up into the mountains a bit and - after fighting more bandits - find another note from Max. He congratulates me on getting him to run away, and notes the jewelry chest near the note is from him, in honor of my achievement. Also, the one who sent me after him is mad because he refused her bed, he wanted me to be clear on that.
He might as well have signed the note, 'See you in the next game, sucker!' but if he wants to give me a few shiny baubles when he was clearly ahead of me every step of the way, sure, I can play along.
I go home, deposit my money in the bank (did I mention? There's a bank in Ark, and it accrues something like 2% interest daily) and sleep it off until Arantheal is ready to see me, which is pretty quickly.
- I am welcomed with the bon homie I've come to expect of the Order.
- Arantheal has a speech about tradition and togetherness and living on after the death of the gods and stuff like that. Calia and I do some light chanting. I don't think the dried up old bag of dicks that is the Order's Fourth Sigils are buying what he's selling, but it's a good speech.
And just like that, I'm raised to the First Sigil, something like the sixth highest rank in the land. I make the rounds of the little church, but nobody wants to hear my acceptance speech.
- My old buddy Sigil Leader Jorek from the trial is here, front row center. He's in fine, sarcastic form, too; he has a way of dragging out his vowels (and the 's' on Prophetess') that really makes me feel his disdain, it's kind of great. He wanted to let me know that he likes Calia better. I figured, but thanks for coming out, Jorek.
I also get some backstory on him; he's old initiate-buddies with Tealor Arentheal and the 'Tuchessa', which I guess is a rank like Grandmaster? But he didn't fight in the war like they did and changed the subject really quick on me. So he's stuck at 'Sigil Leader' rank, whatever that may be.
I wonder if this is setting him up for a jealousy character arc, and if imma have to kill him later.
- Some other named Sigil lady in the second row also chews my ass like Kilean tobacco. Do I know the history of the order (no), do I know the hundredth verse of the Chant the initiates need to do every morning (hell no), do I know why only x-y-zed people can enter the chapel (gimme a break, lady), do I know what some moldy war hero said to another after suppressing a riot (lady, I can't even remember the names you just finished telling me. Hell, I can't remember your name!). And so on, and so forth. My boots defile the chapel by standing here, etcetera.
Well... I have Future Vision powers? So... so there. Yeah.
Between Jorek and this lady it's like my disapproving parents are here in person even after I murdered them, it's sweet.
- The armory informs me that even if I'm Arantheal's special boy, I'm still paying normal prices. Swell.
I also get a free set of Keeper armor. It's bog-standard steel stuff but (as far as I can tell) can't be improved at the workbench, and therefore I will never use it.
I wonder if the temple armory would be weird about it if I tried to sell it.
The Takeaway:
Boy I sure am glad I get to be in your secret club, Arantheal. I kind of want to go find those occasional unusually racist Endraleans who give me that line about 'my thousand husbands' and call me 'coalwoman', put on my Keeper gear, and see if anything changes.
Regardless, the wait is over and I can get back on the main quest stuff, now. I can either go see a man about a corpse that will somehow or other lead me to a rite that would protect the Order and the Guard from the Red Madness. That 'Sigil Stone' stuff that got namedropped a few quests back. Or I could go do.. something, about a discovery in the Heartland woods? That Sigil Stone stuff seems more immediately pressing, so I decide to go for that first.
Last edited by dyslexicfaser on 17.12.2017 20:35, edited 1 time in total.
- So, next step on the road to saving the world: diving into the mind of Enderal's version of a Dwemer to steal his secrets. Sounds legit. How we gonna do it, Archmage?
This is the Archmage, by the way. Very snazzy dresser. Nor Jespar, we've met Jespar before. The other guy.
Apparently I was confused all this time, thinking Tealor Arantheal was also a peerless mage.
- Archmage Lexil explains that the 'Word of the Dead' is a macguffin in the possession of a recluse called the Aged Man. Me and my old pal Jespar here are going to become guests under his roof, sneak out to borrow his ancient artifact in the dead of night, use it on the caveman- I mean, Pyrean in order to pilfer his thoughts and find the magic words, and then pretend none of that ever happened.
I immediately assume I'm going to end up having to murder the guy, but Arantheal insists that if we're made we should flee immediately. At no point should this come to blows.
The Aged Man is apparently someone even the Lightborn - the old, dead mage-gods of the setting - didn't want to cross. I'm sure this will just go... swimmingly.
- The protagonist wonders what's up with this 'magic words' business, since all the other magic in the setting is chantless. Lexil explains this isn't your garden variety spell, natch, and it has more in common with illegal Entropy.
Like, say, the magic I've been using for ten levels to summon ghost wolves and elementals and stuff? The Entropy magic that has always been chantless, like everything else.
Whatever, I'm not an Archmage, I'm sure he knows what he's talking about.
- Lexil also mentions that the Word of the Dead - or possibly the 'magic words' for the spell, I'm not entirely clear - would take the form of a fancy scroll.
... Is this the local version of an Elder Scroll? If this quest drives me mad, I'm gonna be annoyed with you, Lexil.
- So anyway, I swing by the magic shop and buy a Soil Elemental (my old nemesis) summoning spell from the apothecarius for 200 gold pennies. Score. I do kind of wonder why Frost Elementals and Soil Elementals are basically rocks stacked atop one another, while the Flame Elemental is in the shape of a hot chick. Just Magic Things, I guess.
Then it's off to the Western Cliffs by Myrad.
The whole penninsula is pretty barren, not much of interest except for something marked with a dragon's head atop the nearest sheer mountain cliff face. I assume this means 'dragon', and resolve to not come back for like 20 levels. If I can't manage large-ish spiders, I'm not ready for dragons.
- And speaking of things that are terrible, rain starts up as I get closer to the Aged Man's mansion.
Oh, I think, the game just switched over to the Horror genre with an audible clunk, didn't it?
But it may turn out it was just these little bastards, called Wisps.
Now unfortunately I didn't get a very good screenshot of them, because as you may notice I'm at least 9/10ths dead and the screen gets all fuzzy when that happens.
Wisps are little glowy things about the size of a cannonball, which is apropros since they like to fly into you faster than the speed of a running man and smash you to death. I pull out a win after only one death and respawn, by going into the fight with my life absorption spell ready.
They do huge damage but aren't especially hearty, although they're also really hard to hit with a sword.
- In any case, on the way Jespar also reminds me that the Aged Man really likes his puppets, when we meet a pair.
Look at these sad sacks. They're basically like wooden mannequins, only kinda creepy given the expressiveness of their poses.
I'm wondering if there's such a thing as a wood-medusa. I suspect I shall find out shortly.
This is the Archmage, by the way. Very snazzy dresser. Nor Jespar, we've met Jespar before. The other guy.
Apparently I was confused all this time, thinking Tealor Arantheal was also a peerless mage.
- Archmage Lexil explains that the 'Word of the Dead' is a macguffin in the possession of a recluse called the Aged Man. Me and my old pal Jespar here are going to become guests under his roof, sneak out to borrow his ancient artifact in the dead of night, use it on the caveman- I mean, Pyrean in order to pilfer his thoughts and find the magic words, and then pretend none of that ever happened.
I immediately assume I'm going to end up having to murder the guy, but Arantheal insists that if we're made we should flee immediately. At no point should this come to blows.
The Aged Man is apparently someone even the Lightborn - the old, dead mage-gods of the setting - didn't want to cross. I'm sure this will just go... swimmingly.
- The protagonist wonders what's up with this 'magic words' business, since all the other magic in the setting is chantless. Lexil explains this isn't your garden variety spell, natch, and it has more in common with illegal Entropy.
Like, say, the magic I've been using for ten levels to summon ghost wolves and elementals and stuff? The Entropy magic that has always been chantless, like everything else.
Whatever, I'm not an Archmage, I'm sure he knows what he's talking about.
- Lexil also mentions that the Word of the Dead - or possibly the 'magic words' for the spell, I'm not entirely clear - would take the form of a fancy scroll.
... Is this the local version of an Elder Scroll? If this quest drives me mad, I'm gonna be annoyed with you, Lexil.
- So anyway, I swing by the magic shop and buy a Soil Elemental (my old nemesis) summoning spell from the apothecarius for 200 gold pennies. Score. I do kind of wonder why Frost Elementals and Soil Elementals are basically rocks stacked atop one another, while the Flame Elemental is in the shape of a hot chick. Just Magic Things, I guess.
Then it's off to the Western Cliffs by Myrad.
The whole penninsula is pretty barren, not much of interest except for something marked with a dragon's head atop the nearest sheer mountain cliff face. I assume this means 'dragon', and resolve to not come back for like 20 levels. If I can't manage large-ish spiders, I'm not ready for dragons.
- And speaking of things that are terrible, rain starts up as I get closer to the Aged Man's mansion.
Oh, I think, the game just switched over to the Horror genre with an audible clunk, didn't it?
But it may turn out it was just these little bastards, called Wisps.
Now unfortunately I didn't get a very good screenshot of them, because as you may notice I'm at least 9/10ths dead and the screen gets all fuzzy when that happens.
Wisps are little glowy things about the size of a cannonball, which is apropros since they like to fly into you faster than the speed of a running man and smash you to death. I pull out a win after only one death and respawn, by going into the fight with my life absorption spell ready.
They do huge damage but aren't especially hearty, although they're also really hard to hit with a sword.
- In any case, on the way Jespar also reminds me that the Aged Man really likes his puppets, when we meet a pair.
Look at these sad sacks. They're basically like wooden mannequins, only kinda creepy given the expressiveness of their poses.
I'm wondering if there's such a thing as a wood-medusa. I suspect I shall find out shortly.
- Upon reaching the mansion, Jespar suggests we wait until nightfall to angle for spending the night. Unfortunately he can't hear my quiet moan of "Nooooo", and the Prophet agrees.
- After handing over a fancy necklace we 'got off a Keeper' (that being Arantheal himself) to the manservant who was suspiciously quick to arrive (Jespar's words), we're shown inside.
The Aged Man can't come talk because he's doing his music thing right now.
The giant leering gargoyles in particular are a nice touch; so are the long rows of quietly bowed servant-like puppets. They probably aren't going to leap down and murder me at all.
- The servant (and the Aged Man's) love of music and talk of how it transcends barriers and brings out the demons inside us reminds me of the connotations some of Lovecraft's stories had with music. Soon after, the music changes to a piano piece which is the Aged Man's playing. I like it a lot.
Jespar suggests we don't eat the 'slightly charred, but still pretty good' meat, which sounds pretty genre savvy. I also immediately said to myself, 'Don't eat that suspicious meat.'
- The Aged Man's mansion is absolutely stunning. Great use of directed lighting in this segment, whether it's outside in the spotty illumination of rusalla mushrooms, inside the guest bedroom, or down in the hidden crypt.
Did I mention the hidden crypt? There's a hidden crypt. Actually, there's two. For all we know, it's hidden crypts all the way down.
- After a little puzzle involving tugging on books that I'm embarrassed to admit I had to look up on the wiki, I get to visit the first crypt.
A woman is hanging on the wall, trapped in water that constantly cries droplets down the wall like a bug in amber. She's actually pretty okay with it though, and is obviously an old friend or lover of the Aged Man's, kept alive within the watery magic. She can't see me, but she knows I'm there, and we have a nice little chat where she apologizes for being such a bother. Granted, lady.
I feel a lot of similarity in this to Yero's old subplot, where he dug up his old girlfriend and put her on display, and was researching entropy magic. But where Yero was just a Keeper, the Aged Man obviously has orders of magnitude more resources to pursue his goals. Whatever they may be.
- After that we go even deeper, to some sort of old fertility goddess type statue. Where the woman in the water had a lot of pale blue illumination, this thing is more menacing; its dark stone is highlighted red.
Not sure what's up with the statue, but the ritual with the Pyrean goes off without a hitch; cast spell, BAMF, Pyrean appears complete with ice block.
- I read some words and get all up inside him.
I flashback to ancient... Pyrea? Pyre? Whatever it is, it's a nice enough rural area. Farms and such. Turns out everybody is flipping the fuck out in the last days of the Cleansing, and ice-man over there plans to take his sister and/or wife (plus their kid) and leg it to the North. His brother thinks he should stay and fight (and die) like a man, but ice-man is having none of that.
This sequence is a little buggy, particularly if you try to interact with the sleeping girl. There's a line that plays if you try to caress her forehead, but it zips by too quickly for me to read it.
Well anyway, everything changes when Jakal – some human general turncoat – forces attacks. Multiple waves of human warriors, a few archers, and one asshole mage that sneaks around and gets up on a rock where he can zap you with lightning with impunity. The warriors die pretty easily, but the fact that in the later waves you have to kill like 10 of them at once gets dicey.
- Poor lad gets himself killed. No hiding out in a cabin in the great snowy north while the world ends for him and his fam.
- Then I wake up and have a chat with the Aged Man. Who was the servant all along, because for an immortal he's fond of the personal touch. He's a bit of an asshole in a Star Trek kind of way (prime directive, y'know), but he does have the best mutton chops I've ever seen on a man so I guess I forgive him.
He does leave the Word of the Dead behind when he waves his hand and disappears his mansion with me inside it.
- Jespar just wants to get paid and go get a drink, and I can't blame him for that.
Tealor Arantheal reckons that having a name – the High Ones – to put to our enemy is a good job done, plus I did get the words for the Sigil Stone thing. He tells me to trot over and see how the archmages are doing with that.
Lexil and Constantine (mostly Constantine) are a treat, as always. To hear Constantine, you'd think Lexil was reciting from his book of high school poetry instead of words of ancient power.
Constantine literally takes the scroll away from him and reads it himself. Speaking the words causes the macguffin they're hovering over to explode, which appears to be the intention all along! Everybody gets a chunk of glowing purple stone that protects them from Red Madness. Aces.
The Takeaway:
Word of the Dead is a solid little quest. Excellent art direction, and an interesting character whose deal I would like to know. I do wish Pyrea was a little more.. unique, asset-wise? Like, I wish the flashback had been in the city, rather than out in the countryside. Also, did the Aged Man run off with our Pyrean? Can we summon him back? Can we get him out of the eternal ice? Or did he just disappear from the story, never to be heard from again?
I started a new job, so it's anyone's guess how much this project will slow down, beyond the tentative guess of 'some'? Anyway, next time, I wander around the Noble District for the first time, looking for somebody to buy this fancy jewelry that's been sitting in the bottom of my bag for ages, and probably get sent out on that other errand Tealor Arantheal has planned.
- After handing over a fancy necklace we 'got off a Keeper' (that being Arantheal himself) to the manservant who was suspiciously quick to arrive (Jespar's words), we're shown inside.
The Aged Man can't come talk because he's doing his music thing right now.
The giant leering gargoyles in particular are a nice touch; so are the long rows of quietly bowed servant-like puppets. They probably aren't going to leap down and murder me at all.
- The servant (and the Aged Man's) love of music and talk of how it transcends barriers and brings out the demons inside us reminds me of the connotations some of Lovecraft's stories had with music. Soon after, the music changes to a piano piece which is the Aged Man's playing. I like it a lot.
Jespar suggests we don't eat the 'slightly charred, but still pretty good' meat, which sounds pretty genre savvy. I also immediately said to myself, 'Don't eat that suspicious meat.'
- The Aged Man's mansion is absolutely stunning. Great use of directed lighting in this segment, whether it's outside in the spotty illumination of rusalla mushrooms, inside the guest bedroom, or down in the hidden crypt.
Did I mention the hidden crypt? There's a hidden crypt. Actually, there's two. For all we know, it's hidden crypts all the way down.
- After a little puzzle involving tugging on books that I'm embarrassed to admit I had to look up on the wiki, I get to visit the first crypt.
A woman is hanging on the wall, trapped in water that constantly cries droplets down the wall like a bug in amber. She's actually pretty okay with it though, and is obviously an old friend or lover of the Aged Man's, kept alive within the watery magic. She can't see me, but she knows I'm there, and we have a nice little chat where she apologizes for being such a bother. Granted, lady.
I feel a lot of similarity in this to Yero's old subplot, where he dug up his old girlfriend and put her on display, and was researching entropy magic. But where Yero was just a Keeper, the Aged Man obviously has orders of magnitude more resources to pursue his goals. Whatever they may be.
- After that we go even deeper, to some sort of old fertility goddess type statue. Where the woman in the water had a lot of pale blue illumination, this thing is more menacing; its dark stone is highlighted red.
Not sure what's up with the statue, but the ritual with the Pyrean goes off without a hitch; cast spell, BAMF, Pyrean appears complete with ice block.
- I read some words and get all up inside him.
I flashback to ancient... Pyrea? Pyre? Whatever it is, it's a nice enough rural area. Farms and such. Turns out everybody is flipping the fuck out in the last days of the Cleansing, and ice-man over there plans to take his sister and/or wife (plus their kid) and leg it to the North. His brother thinks he should stay and fight (and die) like a man, but ice-man is having none of that.
This sequence is a little buggy, particularly if you try to interact with the sleeping girl. There's a line that plays if you try to caress her forehead, but it zips by too quickly for me to read it.
Well anyway, everything changes when Jakal – some human general turncoat – forces attacks. Multiple waves of human warriors, a few archers, and one asshole mage that sneaks around and gets up on a rock where he can zap you with lightning with impunity. The warriors die pretty easily, but the fact that in the later waves you have to kill like 10 of them at once gets dicey.
- Poor lad gets himself killed. No hiding out in a cabin in the great snowy north while the world ends for him and his fam.
- Then I wake up and have a chat with the Aged Man. Who was the servant all along, because for an immortal he's fond of the personal touch. He's a bit of an asshole in a Star Trek kind of way (prime directive, y'know), but he does have the best mutton chops I've ever seen on a man so I guess I forgive him.
He does leave the Word of the Dead behind when he waves his hand and disappears his mansion with me inside it.
- Jespar just wants to get paid and go get a drink, and I can't blame him for that.
Tealor Arantheal reckons that having a name – the High Ones – to put to our enemy is a good job done, plus I did get the words for the Sigil Stone thing. He tells me to trot over and see how the archmages are doing with that.
Lexil and Constantine (mostly Constantine) are a treat, as always. To hear Constantine, you'd think Lexil was reciting from his book of high school poetry instead of words of ancient power.
Constantine literally takes the scroll away from him and reads it himself. Speaking the words causes the macguffin they're hovering over to explode, which appears to be the intention all along! Everybody gets a chunk of glowing purple stone that protects them from Red Madness. Aces.
The Takeaway:
Word of the Dead is a solid little quest. Excellent art direction, and an interesting character whose deal I would like to know. I do wish Pyrea was a little more.. unique, asset-wise? Like, I wish the flashback had been in the city, rather than out in the countryside. Also, did the Aged Man run off with our Pyrean? Can we summon him back? Can we get him out of the eternal ice? Or did he just disappear from the story, never to be heard from again?
I started a new job, so it's anyone's guess how much this project will slow down, beyond the tentative guess of 'some'? Anyway, next time, I wander around the Noble District for the first time, looking for somebody to buy this fancy jewelry that's been sitting in the bottom of my bag for ages, and probably get sent out on that other errand Tealor Arantheal has planned.
Last edited by dyslexicfaser on 17.06.2017 18:40, edited 2 times in total.
dyslexicfaser, good luck on your new job but I do hope that you will be able to continue this awesome first impressions to the end. It so much reminds me of my first playthrough and I love re-living those memories through your experience.
I have been playing PC games since the 1980s, with some being action/adventure/rpg games, but Enderal was among my greatest gaming experiences ever. I played it back-to-back last winter and like you, my first time primarily focused on the Main Quests (and getting my butt kicked constantly even at the easier levels). I then replayed it after I studied and learned how to play/choose better and was able to play nearly the whole game on Iron Path level.
But what I did the second time was to ignore the Main Quests (by leaving Jespar in Riverville) and go to the hundreds of places that I missed the first time. Focusing on the Main Quests touches each of the regions but I was shocked to find (using the Interactive Map) how many places there are in each region (like Western Cliff which you had just went to). I think it would be cool, if you have the time, to explore even more (you will have more experiences like Lower Haystacks ).
To me, one of the keys in doing well (and how I was able to jump all the way up to Iron Path) was something you have already discovered - conjuring creatures. It doesn't matter if you are a stabber or shooter (like me), you need to a meat shield. Continue with that but keep checking the spell shop in the Nobles Quarters constantly for better conjuring books. Plus, get as much as gold as you can because buying skill books in 2-3 areas will be critical.
Good gaming.
I have been playing PC games since the 1980s, with some being action/adventure/rpg games, but Enderal was among my greatest gaming experiences ever. I played it back-to-back last winter and like you, my first time primarily focused on the Main Quests (and getting my butt kicked constantly even at the easier levels). I then replayed it after I studied and learned how to play/choose better and was able to play nearly the whole game on Iron Path level.
But what I did the second time was to ignore the Main Quests (by leaving Jespar in Riverville) and go to the hundreds of places that I missed the first time. Focusing on the Main Quests touches each of the regions but I was shocked to find (using the Interactive Map) how many places there are in each region (like Western Cliff which you had just went to). I think it would be cool, if you have the time, to explore even more (you will have more experiences like Lower Haystacks
). To me, one of the keys in doing well (and how I was able to jump all the way up to Iron Path) was something you have already discovered - conjuring creatures. It doesn't matter if you are a stabber or shooter (like me), you need to a meat shield. Continue with that but keep checking the spell shop in the Nobles Quarters constantly for better conjuring books. Plus, get as much as gold as you can because buying skill books in 2-3 areas will be critical.
Good gaming.
All right, let's try picking this thing back up. Even an update a week is better than nothing, right?
- So I'm digging around the Noble quarter, looking for someone to buy the random magical jewelry that has been accumulating in the bottom of my backpack for the last ten hours of game. Spoiler: turns out to sell jewelry, you have to find a tailor type merchant. Go figure.
More importantly, the Noble quarter is pretty great! Noble merchants are by and large more interesting than their Marketplace counterparts, and that place has a blacksmith with the unlikely name of 'Pud Duncan' who has open copies of Enderal's version of 'Baby's First Magic Book' of the forbidden Psionics and Entropy disciplines at the foot of his bed.
- Posters for the 'Perpetuum Theater' are plastered everywhere. Even the Undercity, although I don't think the beggars, ne'er-do-wells and fleshmaggot sufferers take in a lot of theatre. Unfortunately the place is closed. The actress sweeping up out front (starving artists have it rough no matter the world) is just one of those gormless types who ask you about your birthplace. 'Oh, Qyra, I hear they have big ol' baby communes over there.' No information on the theater itself. Maybe it's a night only thing.
- So, first off, I happen to run into a guy out taking the air who is notable only because his name is the greatest name ever: Jerrel Edgepunch. Does Enderal have marriage? He's bald and sporting an unfortunate handlebar moustache, but I'm big-hearted, I can forgive a lot. Can I take his name when we marry? We shall have a small service by the sea, and I will wear a pretty dress, and it will be lovely.
- After that, the theater may be closed down but there's a poet (to use the term loosely) reciting vaguely pornographic poetry out in the open air. His name is Prince Adreyu of Mith. Is Mith a real place, or is this a stage name? You know, Mith. Myth. A poet. I can't gauge his level of serious. Can I call him Prince? These are the important questions.
There's a cute little bit where you can spout some nonsense, and he reacts with 100% seriousness as he tries to analyze it like this is English 101. Also he's of the opinion that some local bard sold out to The Man by writing things that all the peasants love. Enderal's first and greatest hipster, Adreyu, first of his name. And you can play along with his nonsense, it's great.
- Right next door to his little podium is the local tavern. Another one. It's called... the Fat Loran? There should be a story behind that, but the bartender isn't talking.
Really, the best part about this place is the bard, a kid named Gerril. It's been a while since I actually stopped in a game, parked myself in front of a minstrel and just listened., but whatever song he was singing when I strolled in was really good. I'm not sure if it's the voice actor or the material, but I'm a little bit transported.
- The local version of The Crazy Herb Woman from Riverville (I guess every city is mandated to have one) speaks in rhyme. Unfortunately she doesn't dispense quests to put funny things on my head in exchange for Learning Points.
- There's also another merchant who is verbally abusing some poor guard when I walk in. Quest started, to go check up on her boy who joined a crazy cult and moved out to some rock in the middle of the ocean. Sounds like a pretty inoffensive hippy commune, but what are the odds I get there to find everyone dead and demons summoned or something like that?
- A bulletin stuck to a pillar directs me to a guy near the bathhouse who has some work he needs done. Well, first, turns out there's a bathhouse. It's pretty cool, although there's nothing actually going on inside.
It looks like you should be able to deliver a pretty righteous cannonball into the pool, but alas not. Pathing issues.
- Next door, the guy I'm here to meet is working on a giant fucking robot. Two stories tall, at least. I stand in awe for approximately 1.5 seconds before the thing shoots lightning bolts from its eyes as the tinkerer takes cover. I'm not sure if I should be less impressed or more, honestly.
He wants me to go find his apprentice, explaining that this sort of thing suits 'my rough hands' better than his. You know, man, I... okay, it's been a hard couple of weeks, I'm not exactly moisturizing. But still. That is pretty mild as far as Endralean racism goes, though; maybe that was the local version of a pick up line?
Also, he's just missing some kind of steering gewgaw before he plans to abandon his frail flesh and transfer his soul into the giant robot. I should probably stay on the good side of the guy planning something like that, just in case.
I will say that his workshop is really cool, even aside from mecha-Starling. One corner is covered with busted up mecha-spiders, and the other has one of those dwarven spheres from Skyrim, you know, where the ancient dwarf-elfs thought it was a good idea to give their robot guardians a giant ball to roll around on instead of legs.
Also, this guy is clearly a slumming nobleman or something. His personal room is huge, and covered in art, and then he has something called his Workshop which is a separate zone/room cut deep into some kind of cavern beneath the city. It hisses and gyrates with strange machines and something sized for a man that could be a portal or some Starling torture device.
This is going to be a good quest, I can feel it.
- Back on track, Tealor Arantheal sends me out after a machine the Pyreans made (reconstructed) to try and save themselves from the Cleansing. I'm still getting Mass Effect flashbacks, but no matter. I'm going dungeon diving with my buddy from the trial, Callia. The quest is named Deus Ex Machina; the scenario writer seems to be poking fun. Maybe it'll be double fun and there's actually a not-Daedra or something trapped inside it.
Calia tells me to meet her at the North Heartlands Myrad. Well, I hop on a giant crime against nature, and one quick flight later...
Um.
This doesn't seem like the right place.
The Takeaway:
The main cities in these games are usually bursting with things to see and to do, and I'm happy to say that Ark is no different. I'd definitely place it over Skyrim's Whiterun in the sheer number of things you accidentally stumble into the middle of just walking around. As for being deposited on a tiny piece of island instead of where I'm supposed to be going...clearly either the Myrad Keeper is confused about my order, or I am. I hope I didn't pay for this flight, because your service sucks, man.
- So I'm digging around the Noble quarter, looking for someone to buy the random magical jewelry that has been accumulating in the bottom of my backpack for the last ten hours of game. Spoiler: turns out to sell jewelry, you have to find a tailor type merchant. Go figure.
More importantly, the Noble quarter is pretty great! Noble merchants are by and large more interesting than their Marketplace counterparts, and that place has a blacksmith with the unlikely name of 'Pud Duncan' who has open copies of Enderal's version of 'Baby's First Magic Book' of the forbidden Psionics and Entropy disciplines at the foot of his bed.
- Posters for the 'Perpetuum Theater' are plastered everywhere. Even the Undercity, although I don't think the beggars, ne'er-do-wells and fleshmaggot sufferers take in a lot of theatre. Unfortunately the place is closed. The actress sweeping up out front (starving artists have it rough no matter the world) is just one of those gormless types who ask you about your birthplace. 'Oh, Qyra, I hear they have big ol' baby communes over there.' No information on the theater itself. Maybe it's a night only thing.
- So, first off, I happen to run into a guy out taking the air who is notable only because his name is the greatest name ever: Jerrel Edgepunch. Does Enderal have marriage? He's bald and sporting an unfortunate handlebar moustache, but I'm big-hearted, I can forgive a lot. Can I take his name when we marry? We shall have a small service by the sea, and I will wear a pretty dress, and it will be lovely.
- After that, the theater may be closed down but there's a poet (to use the term loosely) reciting vaguely pornographic poetry out in the open air. His name is Prince Adreyu of Mith. Is Mith a real place, or is this a stage name? You know, Mith. Myth. A poet. I can't gauge his level of serious. Can I call him Prince? These are the important questions.
There's a cute little bit where you can spout some nonsense, and he reacts with 100% seriousness as he tries to analyze it like this is English 101. Also he's of the opinion that some local bard sold out to The Man by writing things that all the peasants love. Enderal's first and greatest hipster, Adreyu, first of his name. And you can play along with his nonsense, it's great.
- Right next door to his little podium is the local tavern. Another one. It's called... the Fat Loran? There should be a story behind that, but the bartender isn't talking.
Really, the best part about this place is the bard, a kid named Gerril. It's been a while since I actually stopped in a game, parked myself in front of a minstrel and just listened., but whatever song he was singing when I strolled in was really good. I'm not sure if it's the voice actor or the material, but I'm a little bit transported.
- The local version of The Crazy Herb Woman from Riverville (I guess every city is mandated to have one) speaks in rhyme. Unfortunately she doesn't dispense quests to put funny things on my head in exchange for Learning Points.
- There's also another merchant who is verbally abusing some poor guard when I walk in. Quest started, to go check up on her boy who joined a crazy cult and moved out to some rock in the middle of the ocean. Sounds like a pretty inoffensive hippy commune, but what are the odds I get there to find everyone dead and demons summoned or something like that?
- A bulletin stuck to a pillar directs me to a guy near the bathhouse who has some work he needs done. Well, first, turns out there's a bathhouse. It's pretty cool, although there's nothing actually going on inside.
It looks like you should be able to deliver a pretty righteous cannonball into the pool, but alas not. Pathing issues.
- Next door, the guy I'm here to meet is working on a giant fucking robot. Two stories tall, at least. I stand in awe for approximately 1.5 seconds before the thing shoots lightning bolts from its eyes as the tinkerer takes cover. I'm not sure if I should be less impressed or more, honestly.
He wants me to go find his apprentice, explaining that this sort of thing suits 'my rough hands' better than his. You know, man, I... okay, it's been a hard couple of weeks, I'm not exactly moisturizing. But still. That is pretty mild as far as Endralean racism goes, though; maybe that was the local version of a pick up line?
Also, he's just missing some kind of steering gewgaw before he plans to abandon his frail flesh and transfer his soul into the giant robot. I should probably stay on the good side of the guy planning something like that, just in case.
I will say that his workshop is really cool, even aside from mecha-Starling. One corner is covered with busted up mecha-spiders, and the other has one of those dwarven spheres from Skyrim, you know, where the ancient dwarf-elfs thought it was a good idea to give their robot guardians a giant ball to roll around on instead of legs.
Also, this guy is clearly a slumming nobleman or something. His personal room is huge, and covered in art, and then he has something called his Workshop which is a separate zone/room cut deep into some kind of cavern beneath the city. It hisses and gyrates with strange machines and something sized for a man that could be a portal or some Starling torture device.
This is going to be a good quest, I can feel it.
- Back on track, Tealor Arantheal sends me out after a machine the Pyreans made (reconstructed) to try and save themselves from the Cleansing. I'm still getting Mass Effect flashbacks, but no matter. I'm going dungeon diving with my buddy from the trial, Callia. The quest is named Deus Ex Machina; the scenario writer seems to be poking fun. Maybe it'll be double fun and there's actually a not-Daedra or something trapped inside it.
Calia tells me to meet her at the North Heartlands Myrad. Well, I hop on a giant crime against nature, and one quick flight later...
Um.
This doesn't seem like the right place.
The Takeaway:
The main cities in these games are usually bursting with things to see and to do, and I'm happy to say that Ark is no different. I'd definitely place it over Skyrim's Whiterun in the sheer number of things you accidentally stumble into the middle of just walking around. As for being deposited on a tiny piece of island instead of where I'm supposed to be going...clearly either the Myrad Keeper is confused about my order, or I am. I hope I didn't pay for this flight, because your service sucks, man.
Last edited by dyslexicfaser on 17.06.2017 18:40, edited 2 times in total.
... Did I manage to bork all my old pictures? Geez, it was probably deleting my old screenshots from steam that did it.
Last edited by dyslexicfaser on 17.06.2017 18:45, edited 1 time in total.
. Quest started, to go check up on her boy who joined a crazy cult and moved out to some rock in the middle of the ocean. Sounds like a pretty inoffensive hippy commune, but what are the odds I get there to find everyone dead and demons summoned or something like that?
This is going to be a good quest, I can feel it.
Nifty. I THINK it was this one that hooked me at the Fat Loran?
https://youtu.be/26DDafV3GCY
That's definitely what happened. I should pay more attention to conversation trees before clicking on 'em, I guess.
Not that I mind, it was a pretty okay quest. Even if I'm pretty sure that one of the cabins housing freaking Shelob is SureAI's way of fucking with us.
https://youtu.be/26DDafV3GCY
12.06.2017 04:51badgesareus wrote:Mirella arranged for the Myrad jockey to drop you off near the quest island (you should have the Brotherhood of Kor quest in your log). So when you hopped a myrad to do the quest with Calia, that's what happened. It is a *** quest and you can only leave with a teleport scroll or a very long swim.. Quest started, to go check up on her boy who joined a crazy cult and moved out to some rock in the middle of the ocean. Sounds like a pretty inoffensive hippy commune, but what are the odds I get there to find everyone dead and demons summoned or something like that?
Not that I mind, it was a pretty okay quest. Even if I'm pretty sure that one of the cabins housing freaking Shelob is SureAI's way of fucking with us.
Like badgesus said, it looks like I’m headed in for the Brotherhood of Kor quest.
- As he left, the Myrad Keeper said, ‘Watch out for bonerippers!’ What even is–
Oh. Well, that answers that. … Sort of? I mean, are they an animal, or a person, or…? Given they aren’t howling about how that other guy was their friend and they’ll kill me, you bastard, the way the bandits tend to do, I’m going to go ahead and assume animal.
What they are is about seven feet of meanness, scales and claws that walks like a man. Like a man-sized t-rex.
Strangely, while the 2-3 that greet me on the pier are doable, there’s one bone-ripper out on the beach around the side that rips through my armor – and my squishy bits – like knife meeting butter. The second go round works better, when I make sure to drop a soil elemental between us. But it's still a much harder fight for no discernible reason.
- So obviously things went topsy turvy on the poor cultists. It’s just a question of if the bone-rippers got them or if something else did first.
- I like the design of the island, by the way. It feels tropical. There are fish drying (rotting) in lattice traps, there are banana trees. The cultists kept chickens until they all got slaughtered in the main square: the coop stands empty, and buzzes with flies.
Of note, my character can apparently differentiate chickens murdered by human hands from anything else: these were killed by the cultists themselves, she says. I didn’t realize she was such a connoisseur of chicken-murder.
- So I go around looting huts, you know, like you do. Ostensibly to find the ‘letters of Kor’ that (optionally) advance the quest, but I think we all know why I’m doing this.
Most of them are empty except for the occasional goodie; most contain a strongbox, most strongboxes contain a piece of magical jewelry. I find one that boosts one handed weapons by 7%, which I replace my lockpicking one with. As all know, RPG characters are only allowed to wear one or, at most, two magical rings; anything else would be gaudy.
And- wait. Wait a fucking minute.
You mean to tell me that Prince Atreyu of Mith is published. And one of these cultists was a big, big fan. I don't even.
I know there was that whole thing with the Cleansing and the High Ones and whatever, but this? This throws my whole world into question.
- Most of the huts also contain a couple of ‘desert rats’ which are poor, pitiful cousins of the Mad Rats that gave me trouble earlier. Or possibly I transitioned into a rat-slaying badass when I wasn’t looking.
I do wonder why ‘desert rats’, a bit. Did ‘island rats’ sound too festive?
- Another thing to mention is that this place is kinda buggy.
For one, after half an hour of wandering around killing rats, I ding three times all at once. I suspect one of the rats dispenses a truly ridiculous amount of exp on death.
For another, upon entering one of the huts I tripped and fell through the world. Enderal righted itself five seconds later, but from thereafter whenever I jumped I began floating instead. It fixed itself upon restarting the game, but I want you to imagine the rest of this entry with me gently floating hither and yon.
- This is a bug of the more traditional kind. One of the huts contains a ‘Desert Queen Spider’, and I, her loyal subject, can only bow in supplication.
And then reload trapped in a very small hut with a very large arachnid, whereupon I turn around and leg it for the sandy shores. She deigns not to follow. She is quite frankly a stupidly large fish in the shallow pond that is this quest and there is no way I’m bringing her down, particularly since my soil elemental doesn’t like to follow me into huts in this area.
Perhaps my loyal rock monster is a staunch atheist, and the religious paraphernalia in the huts offends it.
- In order to get into the main lodge thingy, I have to go find two AWOL cultists. Women who tried to run when things started getting weird with the rest of the cult. The notes I’ve been finding are mostly theirs.
For some reason, they’re basically Skyrim draugr; glowing eyes, armored, and wielding rune axes. How tough must their abusive husbands be, I ask myself as I furiously stab away at their leathery flesh.
I fully expect to find a coven of cave trolls or vatyr or something inside that lodge.
- There’s a fancy feast inside, primarily roast horse. Why did they even have those things? The island takes about a minute to cross on foot.
This quest isn’t over yet, though! You have to go down into the cellar of the lodge, and then dive into the murky water found there. Then – if you’re like me, anyway – you have to spend roughly ten minutes (the water breathing potion nearby only lasts for 5, so this involved a reload) floating around among the fish and corpses until you find the tunnel leading ever deeper down, and then up, into a Lovecraftian sunken temple.
Where is your god now, cultists!
I’m just kidding, he’s right there. I’m getting a few flashbacks to the thing stashed in the depths of the Aged Man’s mansion, but that’s probably just the similar lighting. This fellow looks like some pagan sea god, leg jauntily crossed in repose, with the corpses of its tricked faithful strewn about.
- I score a ‘sword of Kor’ that is fancy-looking but honestly not any better than my fiery rune sword, and a teleport scroll to get me back to Ark.
I am totally going to lie to that poor kid’s mom when I get back, too. It’s nice the game gives me the option when I discover something this deeply fucked up, to just make up some nonsense about how he ‘got on a ship and traveled across the ocean.’ And she's all, 'Oh no, such a poor fool, I'll pray for him.' Lady, you don't know the half of it.
The Takeaway:
I’m probably with badgesus on this one: I’d give this sidequest three stars out of five. The plot is fairly interesting and the location a little different from the usual (tropical), but it was dragged down by bugs, my occasional inability to figure out where the heck I was going, and the complete absence of another living soul. Like, how cool would it have been if you got down there and ‘Kor’ spoke down to the little ant that you are like Sovereign from Mass Effect? He was around before the pitiful ‘gods’ of mankind, and he would be there after its end. Etcetera. What if you could try to enlist his aid or blessing to deal with the Cleansing, like the local version of one of Skyrim’s Daedric Princes?
Anyway, it was fine but I’m eager to get back to the main quest again.
- As he left, the Myrad Keeper said, ‘Watch out for bonerippers!’ What even is–
Oh. Well, that answers that. … Sort of? I mean, are they an animal, or a person, or…? Given they aren’t howling about how that other guy was their friend and they’ll kill me, you bastard, the way the bandits tend to do, I’m going to go ahead and assume animal.
What they are is about seven feet of meanness, scales and claws that walks like a man. Like a man-sized t-rex.
Strangely, while the 2-3 that greet me on the pier are doable, there’s one bone-ripper out on the beach around the side that rips through my armor – and my squishy bits – like knife meeting butter. The second go round works better, when I make sure to drop a soil elemental between us. But it's still a much harder fight for no discernible reason.
- So obviously things went topsy turvy on the poor cultists. It’s just a question of if the bone-rippers got them or if something else did first.
- I like the design of the island, by the way. It feels tropical. There are fish drying (rotting) in lattice traps, there are banana trees. The cultists kept chickens until they all got slaughtered in the main square: the coop stands empty, and buzzes with flies.
Of note, my character can apparently differentiate chickens murdered by human hands from anything else: these were killed by the cultists themselves, she says. I didn’t realize she was such a connoisseur of chicken-murder.
- So I go around looting huts, you know, like you do. Ostensibly to find the ‘letters of Kor’ that (optionally) advance the quest, but I think we all know why I’m doing this.
Most of them are empty except for the occasional goodie; most contain a strongbox, most strongboxes contain a piece of magical jewelry. I find one that boosts one handed weapons by 7%, which I replace my lockpicking one with. As all know, RPG characters are only allowed to wear one or, at most, two magical rings; anything else would be gaudy.
And- wait. Wait a fucking minute.
You mean to tell me that Prince Atreyu of Mith is published. And one of these cultists was a big, big fan. I don't even.
I know there was that whole thing with the Cleansing and the High Ones and whatever, but this? This throws my whole world into question.
- Most of the huts also contain a couple of ‘desert rats’ which are poor, pitiful cousins of the Mad Rats that gave me trouble earlier. Or possibly I transitioned into a rat-slaying badass when I wasn’t looking.
I do wonder why ‘desert rats’, a bit. Did ‘island rats’ sound too festive?
- Another thing to mention is that this place is kinda buggy.
For one, after half an hour of wandering around killing rats, I ding three times all at once. I suspect one of the rats dispenses a truly ridiculous amount of exp on death.
For another, upon entering one of the huts I tripped and fell through the world. Enderal righted itself five seconds later, but from thereafter whenever I jumped I began floating instead. It fixed itself upon restarting the game, but I want you to imagine the rest of this entry with me gently floating hither and yon.
- This is a bug of the more traditional kind. One of the huts contains a ‘Desert Queen Spider’, and I, her loyal subject, can only bow in supplication.
And then reload trapped in a very small hut with a very large arachnid, whereupon I turn around and leg it for the sandy shores. She deigns not to follow. She is quite frankly a stupidly large fish in the shallow pond that is this quest and there is no way I’m bringing her down, particularly since my soil elemental doesn’t like to follow me into huts in this area.
Perhaps my loyal rock monster is a staunch atheist, and the religious paraphernalia in the huts offends it.
- In order to get into the main lodge thingy, I have to go find two AWOL cultists. Women who tried to run when things started getting weird with the rest of the cult. The notes I’ve been finding are mostly theirs.
For some reason, they’re basically Skyrim draugr; glowing eyes, armored, and wielding rune axes. How tough must their abusive husbands be, I ask myself as I furiously stab away at their leathery flesh.
I fully expect to find a coven of cave trolls or vatyr or something inside that lodge.
- There’s a fancy feast inside, primarily roast horse. Why did they even have those things? The island takes about a minute to cross on foot.
This quest isn’t over yet, though! You have to go down into the cellar of the lodge, and then dive into the murky water found there. Then – if you’re like me, anyway – you have to spend roughly ten minutes (the water breathing potion nearby only lasts for 5, so this involved a reload) floating around among the fish and corpses until you find the tunnel leading ever deeper down, and then up, into a Lovecraftian sunken temple.
Where is your god now, cultists!
I’m just kidding, he’s right there. I’m getting a few flashbacks to the thing stashed in the depths of the Aged Man’s mansion, but that’s probably just the similar lighting. This fellow looks like some pagan sea god, leg jauntily crossed in repose, with the corpses of its tricked faithful strewn about.
- I score a ‘sword of Kor’ that is fancy-looking but honestly not any better than my fiery rune sword, and a teleport scroll to get me back to Ark.
I am totally going to lie to that poor kid’s mom when I get back, too. It’s nice the game gives me the option when I discover something this deeply fucked up, to just make up some nonsense about how he ‘got on a ship and traveled across the ocean.’ And she's all, 'Oh no, such a poor fool, I'll pray for him.' Lady, you don't know the half of it.
The Takeaway:
I’m probably with badgesus on this one: I’d give this sidequest three stars out of five. The plot is fairly interesting and the location a little different from the usual (tropical), but it was dragged down by bugs, my occasional inability to figure out where the heck I was going, and the complete absence of another living soul. Like, how cool would it have been if you got down there and ‘Kor’ spoke down to the little ant that you are like Sovereign from Mass Effect? He was around before the pitiful ‘gods’ of mankind, and he would be there after its end. Etcetera. What if you could try to enlist his aid or blessing to deal with the Cleansing, like the local version of one of Skyrim’s Daedric Princes?
Anyway, it was fine but I’m eager to get back to the main quest again.
Last edited by dyslexicfaser on 18.06.2017 04:27, edited 1 time in total.
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