cant wait to see how the rest of this pans out............ i'd love to see your reactions to a few events that occur later on
Been a while, yeah? Let’s do this thing.
- So when we last left our stalwart heroes, Calia was traumatized again and spending some time alone in her room. I had to fight my way across the Great White North again and complete a physics puzzle, but I got a nice cloak out of it and also a plot macguffin so that’s fine.
After dropping by Ark again to sell off some stuff and picking up Summon Bow V and Summon Mud Elemental II, I headed out on the next leg of the quest, entitled <All The Dead Souls>.
Now historically, ghosts in this game have been of the terrifying and/or exploding varieties. But on the upside, all three ‘clues’ are really close to Ark so that’s handy.
- The mud elemental is so tiny and adorable! And when he’s bored he sits on his tiny haunches like a dog or an internet meme about Slavs.
But buggy. Or … possibly working as intended? Half the time the spell just… fizzles unless I’m on solid land. Bridges and crypt floors seem to be right out. But I mean, he is a mud elemental. So maybe that’s how it works?
In which case I would applaud SureAI for attention to detail but then never use the little guy again since Ice Elementals can be summoned anywhere and the only downside with him is trying to train him not to block doorways.
- It’s been a while since I’ve just wandered around the Ark countryside, and it’s something of a palate cleanser after trying to chop snow bears and undead monsters to death/re-death up North. The area around Ark is always summer, with plentiful greenery and lakes and misty mountains in the distance. Ark itself looks like a hive of industry with its little waterwheels and mills and the stables and farms everywhere.
And actually pretty defensible, now that I’m looking at it from the angle of Calia’s doom-and-gloom about the Nehrimese sieging the place.
The three entrances are over bridges with multiple watchtowers. Every entrance into the city is set into a heavily fortified gate.
Fingers crossed for a siege section, it would be a shame to have this well-designed city and not put it to the test don't you think?
Mind you, the bridges and watchtowers could mostly be bypassed by just sailing into the harbor where all the sailors and fishermen hang out, and the Nehrimese came to Enderal by boat.
But even then every district inside has sturdy doors and mortared walls, and the Sun Temple is on top of a goddamn mountain up about a hundred feet of defensible climb to the very top of the city (carved to look like… well, it kind of looks like some poor slave is having to hold up the temple, but maybe I’m just having Kirkwall flashbacks to Dragon Age 2).
- Anyway. Ark: still beautiful. Moving on.
The first ‘clue’ (read: minimap marker) takes me to a little cove just south of Ark. Something like an underground river with its own moored boat.
Thank god for the minimap, is all I’ll say. Because if finding the macguffin relied on my ability to decode a treasure map...
Well, ‘treasure’ is being overly generous, turns out.
That eerie glow is some poor bastard kicking back and taking an acid bath.
Not real sure if he was tied down or if he jumped into the bath of his own free will, as yet.
There’s something like a suicide note, giving his name and explaining his crimes. Trafficking nearly a thousand souls into and out of Enderal, probably right here in this cove.
He remembers exact numbers, but he does not remember their names.
There’s this line about the ‘Bonejudge’ judging him for his crimes, and I wonder… is this some just god measuring crime and punishment on the scale of a life, like Ma’at?
Presumably this will become clear later, along with the cipher given at the end of the note.
- The next ‘clue’ is in Ark itself, leading me to a sewer cover I’ve walked past a couple times.
Inside, well. The first real set piece for the area is:
Really sets the tone, you know?
I’m starting to think the Bonejudge is less ‘keeper of the afterlife’ and more some mortal authority helping things along. Where the guy in the acid bath was all by his lonesome in a hidden alcove that yeah, maybe nobody ever found before me, this fellow is definitely not lonely.
Ghostly guardians patrol the rooms, and corpses are shackled to walls or left hanging out.
I’m thinking… old prison, probably.
A cart full of skulls, meticulously stacked.
Whole skeletons carpet the floor of a nook at the base of a staircase.
There’s this bit, which… I don’t even know what I’m looking at, here:
Somebody’s favorite torture chair?
- At the end is a lonely cage, with food set all around. Good lighting.
The woman in the cage also has a note penned in her own hand. She was a murderess for hire called the ‘black widow’. For her crimes, she will place herself in this cage with no food or drink and starve to death. Which she obviously did.
Is this place hers, then? Because there’s at least sixty dead men scattered about in here, if you count up the skulls and skeletons, and … if she were a hitwoman, and this hideaway contains evidence of her work, then she was the Stephen King of the fantasy murderer’s scene.
- I’m starting to feel like I’m learning less about this quest as I complete it, not more.
Is this suicide, or murder? Is it divine revelation, mortal mind control, did the Bonejudge force this woman into a little cage and spread food all around just to twist the knife a little?
Is this the Bonejudge’s hideout, or the Black Widow’s? The human trafficker was left in a place that I think was intended to evoke his crimes, that little underground grotto with the boat...
What does this have to do with Jespar? Because I’m going to be honest, if it turns out Jespar is pulling night shifts as a murderous vigilante of Justice, I think I’m going to have to withdraw all the come ons I’ve been sending his way. Killing people is kind of my raison d’etre, but sticking them in a cage and starving them to death is a bit much, you know?
- Actually, I’ve been feeling like the ‘Bonejudge’ is kind of familiar somehow, but I’m not sure where…
Oh yyyeah. My skill tree.
Now, I’d like to say with certainty that I am definitely probably not the Bonejudge. 65% certain at least.
But you know… you never can be sure in this game.
If it turns out I’m blacking out and sadistically torturing murderers in my free time, I will definitely take back all the stuff I said about Jespar. And request immediate cuddles.
- Well enough existential dread, I still have one more clue to track down!
This isn’t the first time I’ve plugged the music in this game, but that was the original bard songs. This is just the background music as I’m riding through the local farmlands, a little thing of piano and woodwind… wow, though. It just makes you want to forget the looming apocalypse and just ride on, you know?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN7xwt9iT9Y
- And then from all that auditory beauty right to the murder site in some nondescript farm. It’s like Enderal is saying, ‘Isn’t this place a beauty? But scratch a layer off the surface and it’s pain and misery all the way down.’
It fits. I love Enderal but this game is dark as a chasm straight into the center of the earth compared to Skyrim’s ‘save the world from dragons lol’ main quest.
- I remember the endless Vatyr of old Haystacks, so I am kind of terrified when my minimap leads me to the Ark farms and a place called Old Granary.
It’s actually pretty low-key, though. Just a bunch of giant rats.
The corpse’s note is penned in a shaky hand, and it’s clear the writer is under duress.
This cellar is where he kidnapped children from the Undercity, and so it is the site where he will be eaten by rats while still alive.
- It’s pretty clear by now that the Bonejudge is tracking down these people and sadistically murdering them in the places most connected to their own crimes. I was wondering if these were one of those ‘ironic punishment’ deals, but no. Merely a brutal one.
The slave trafficker, dipped in acid.
The hitwoman, starved to death.
The kidnapper and child abuser, eaten by rats.
And if you put the cipher at the end of each letter together, it’s reads: “For my brothers in arms: ‘Knock knock, who’s there? Come in alone, if you dare.’”
- Now, atmospheric, I grant you!
But I’m not actually too sure how the Prophetess put together a location from the cipher. Were the letters printed on the backs of maps, or…?
Also, it seems a little unlikely for anyone to actually find all three of these murder sites and put together the code without someone (naming no names, just in case the Enderalean post office is onto me) intercepting Jespar’s mail. So this is starting to seem like something of a taunt directed at possibly me but probably Jespar specifically.
A ‘come find me, if you dare.’
Well, all right then.
The Takeaway:
I appreciate the story-driven nature of this quest, it’s just a little weird how mechanically easy it is after Calia’s. Like, an hour ago I was battling killing Nehrimese war parties so I could kill bandit wizards so I could kill a village full of elemental wolves and giant spiders for the privilege of battling my way through an abandoned keep full of reanimated corpses.
Now I’m fighting large-ish rats. Which, yeah, they gave me a disease, but a trip to the doctor will clear that right up.
Actually I’m noticing a lot of minimap markers that I haven’t investigated yet, so I think I’ll take a brief sidetrip before continuing on my quest to track down Enderalean Batman.
- So when we last left our stalwart heroes, Calia was traumatized again and spending some time alone in her room. I had to fight my way across the Great White North again and complete a physics puzzle, but I got a nice cloak out of it and also a plot macguffin so that’s fine.
After dropping by Ark again to sell off some stuff and picking up Summon Bow V and Summon Mud Elemental II, I headed out on the next leg of the quest, entitled <All The Dead Souls>.
Now historically, ghosts in this game have been of the terrifying and/or exploding varieties. But on the upside, all three ‘clues’ are really close to Ark so that’s handy.
- The mud elemental is so tiny and adorable! And when he’s bored he sits on his tiny haunches like a dog or an internet meme about Slavs.
But buggy. Or … possibly working as intended? Half the time the spell just… fizzles unless I’m on solid land. Bridges and crypt floors seem to be right out. But I mean, he is a mud elemental. So maybe that’s how it works?
In which case I would applaud SureAI for attention to detail but then never use the little guy again since Ice Elementals can be summoned anywhere and the only downside with him is trying to train him not to block doorways.
- It’s been a while since I’ve just wandered around the Ark countryside, and it’s something of a palate cleanser after trying to chop snow bears and undead monsters to death/re-death up North. The area around Ark is always summer, with plentiful greenery and lakes and misty mountains in the distance. Ark itself looks like a hive of industry with its little waterwheels and mills and the stables and farms everywhere.
And actually pretty defensible, now that I’m looking at it from the angle of Calia’s doom-and-gloom about the Nehrimese sieging the place.
The three entrances are over bridges with multiple watchtowers. Every entrance into the city is set into a heavily fortified gate.
Fingers crossed for a siege section, it would be a shame to have this well-designed city and not put it to the test don't you think?
Mind you, the bridges and watchtowers could mostly be bypassed by just sailing into the harbor where all the sailors and fishermen hang out, and the Nehrimese came to Enderal by boat.
But even then every district inside has sturdy doors and mortared walls, and the Sun Temple is on top of a goddamn mountain up about a hundred feet of defensible climb to the very top of the city (carved to look like… well, it kind of looks like some poor slave is having to hold up the temple, but maybe I’m just having Kirkwall flashbacks to Dragon Age 2).
- Anyway. Ark: still beautiful. Moving on.
The first ‘clue’ (read: minimap marker) takes me to a little cove just south of Ark. Something like an underground river with its own moored boat.
Thank god for the minimap, is all I’ll say. Because if finding the macguffin relied on my ability to decode a treasure map...
Well, ‘treasure’ is being overly generous, turns out.
That eerie glow is some poor bastard kicking back and taking an acid bath.
Not real sure if he was tied down or if he jumped into the bath of his own free will, as yet.
There’s something like a suicide note, giving his name and explaining his crimes. Trafficking nearly a thousand souls into and out of Enderal, probably right here in this cove.
He remembers exact numbers, but he does not remember their names.
There’s this line about the ‘Bonejudge’ judging him for his crimes, and I wonder… is this some just god measuring crime and punishment on the scale of a life, like Ma’at?
Presumably this will become clear later, along with the cipher given at the end of the note.
- The next ‘clue’ is in Ark itself, leading me to a sewer cover I’ve walked past a couple times.
Inside, well. The first real set piece for the area is:
Really sets the tone, you know?
I’m starting to think the Bonejudge is less ‘keeper of the afterlife’ and more some mortal authority helping things along. Where the guy in the acid bath was all by his lonesome in a hidden alcove that yeah, maybe nobody ever found before me, this fellow is definitely not lonely.
Ghostly guardians patrol the rooms, and corpses are shackled to walls or left hanging out.
I’m thinking… old prison, probably.
A cart full of skulls, meticulously stacked.
Whole skeletons carpet the floor of a nook at the base of a staircase.
There’s this bit, which… I don’t even know what I’m looking at, here:
Somebody’s favorite torture chair?
- At the end is a lonely cage, with food set all around. Good lighting.
The woman in the cage also has a note penned in her own hand. She was a murderess for hire called the ‘black widow’. For her crimes, she will place herself in this cage with no food or drink and starve to death. Which she obviously did.
Is this place hers, then? Because there’s at least sixty dead men scattered about in here, if you count up the skulls and skeletons, and … if she were a hitwoman, and this hideaway contains evidence of her work, then she was the Stephen King of the fantasy murderer’s scene.
- I’m starting to feel like I’m learning less about this quest as I complete it, not more.
Is this suicide, or murder? Is it divine revelation, mortal mind control, did the Bonejudge force this woman into a little cage and spread food all around just to twist the knife a little?
Is this the Bonejudge’s hideout, or the Black Widow’s? The human trafficker was left in a place that I think was intended to evoke his crimes, that little underground grotto with the boat...
What does this have to do with Jespar? Because I’m going to be honest, if it turns out Jespar is pulling night shifts as a murderous vigilante of Justice, I think I’m going to have to withdraw all the come ons I’ve been sending his way. Killing people is kind of my raison d’etre, but sticking them in a cage and starving them to death is a bit much, you know?
- Actually, I’ve been feeling like the ‘Bonejudge’ is kind of familiar somehow, but I’m not sure where…
Oh yyyeah. My skill tree.
Now, I’d like to say with certainty that I am definitely probably not the Bonejudge. 65% certain at least.
But you know… you never can be sure in this game.
If it turns out I’m blacking out and sadistically torturing murderers in my free time, I will definitely take back all the stuff I said about Jespar. And request immediate cuddles.
- Well enough existential dread, I still have one more clue to track down!
This isn’t the first time I’ve plugged the music in this game, but that was the original bard songs. This is just the background music as I’m riding through the local farmlands, a little thing of piano and woodwind… wow, though. It just makes you want to forget the looming apocalypse and just ride on, you know?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN7xwt9iT9Y
- And then from all that auditory beauty right to the murder site in some nondescript farm. It’s like Enderal is saying, ‘Isn’t this place a beauty? But scratch a layer off the surface and it’s pain and misery all the way down.’
It fits. I love Enderal but this game is dark as a chasm straight into the center of the earth compared to Skyrim’s ‘save the world from dragons lol’ main quest.
- I remember the endless Vatyr of old Haystacks, so I am kind of terrified when my minimap leads me to the Ark farms and a place called Old Granary.
It’s actually pretty low-key, though. Just a bunch of giant rats.
The corpse’s note is penned in a shaky hand, and it’s clear the writer is under duress.
This cellar is where he kidnapped children from the Undercity, and so it is the site where he will be eaten by rats while still alive.
- It’s pretty clear by now that the Bonejudge is tracking down these people and sadistically murdering them in the places most connected to their own crimes. I was wondering if these were one of those ‘ironic punishment’ deals, but no. Merely a brutal one.
The slave trafficker, dipped in acid.
The hitwoman, starved to death.
The kidnapper and child abuser, eaten by rats.
And if you put the cipher at the end of each letter together, it’s reads: “For my brothers in arms: ‘Knock knock, who’s there? Come in alone, if you dare.’”
- Now, atmospheric, I grant you!
But I’m not actually too sure how the Prophetess put together a location from the cipher. Were the letters printed on the backs of maps, or…?
Also, it seems a little unlikely for anyone to actually find all three of these murder sites and put together the code without someone (naming no names, just in case the Enderalean post office is onto me) intercepting Jespar’s mail. So this is starting to seem like something of a taunt directed at possibly me but probably Jespar specifically.
A ‘come find me, if you dare.’
Well, all right then.
The Takeaway:
I appreciate the story-driven nature of this quest, it’s just a little weird how mechanically easy it is after Calia’s. Like, an hour ago I was battling killing Nehrimese war parties so I could kill bandit wizards so I could kill a village full of elemental wolves and giant spiders for the privilege of battling my way through an abandoned keep full of reanimated corpses.
Now I’m fighting large-ish rats. Which, yeah, they gave me a disease, but a trip to the doctor will clear that right up.
Actually I’m noticing a lot of minimap markers that I haven’t investigated yet, so I think I’ll take a brief sidetrip before continuing on my quest to track down Enderalean Batman.
15.12.2017 03:19dyslexicfaser wrote:
I had to fight my way across the Great White North again and complete a physics puzzle, but I got a nice cloak out of it and also a plot macguffin so that’s fine.
Half the time the spell just… fizzles unless I’m on solid land. Bridges and crypt floors seem to be right out. But I mean, he is a mud elemental. So maybe that’s how it works?
16.12.2017 01:53Buccaneer wrote: Ok, you lost me on that one. Are you talking about the Angel quest or was this another side trip into Frostfall?
And now in this quest, I'm fighting Fullgrown Rats (which by the way has scarier implication than if they were called Giant Rats).
Yep. I think you can get and use one fairly early but with a limiter of where you can summon one (from dirt!). I remember going into the hard West Cliff castle early with only a Mud Elemental to summon and the only way I could have gotten through the beginning part was to summon one outside in the dirt and then have it follow me inside.
But also there's something to be said for convenience when you have to resummon these guys every 2 minutes. If they stuck around for 5 or 10, I'd actually be using Revive Corpse sometimes, when I find dead mages.
EDIT: By the by, finally fixed (I think) the broken links in the early part of the Let's Play.
welll im not sure if you are into modding but in the event you are there is a mod on the nexus i found recently for enderal that extends the durations of summons as well as a few buff spells
note the mod does NOT improve the potency of them in any way shape or form, just extends the duration of them more for quality of life purposes and as such is at least imo by no means gamebreaking
note the mod does NOT improve the potency of them in any way shape or form, just extends the duration of them more for quality of life purposes and as such is at least imo by no means gamebreaking
35 hours into this now, I've been playing it all weekend instead of celebrating Christmas like path-abiding people.
This game reminds me a hell of a lot of Fallout New Vegas, a game I always thought was a much better use of the Fallout 3 engine than Fallout 3, with its much tighter plotting, better quests, deeper RPG mechanics, more focused world design, and minimal level scaling. I do think New Vegas does it better with the nonlinear plot that is fed into by dozens of side quests, but you didn't have Obsidian's budget so that's to be expected. I like finally being able to play a Skyrim-based game that lets you get into serious trouble wandering into high-level areas, and if you survive that trouble, twink yourself out with awesome loot, just like you could in Baldur's Gate II. The verticality of the map compared to Skyrim was annoying at first, but I got used to it.
Combat feels a lot better than Skyrim, especially with the Wildcat mod. It's still not that great but it at least has some degree of balance now. I like the level system but I don't know how I feel about the "learning books". Not only is it a contrived and "gamey" way of handling character progression, the cost of the books is extremely prohibitive in the early game and I spent around six hours with my skill levels in the 15-20 range and dozens of unspent learning points, and going was extremely rough at first and I godmoded through several early fights that seemed completely unfair (wander into a cave, find two spiders, immediately get poisoned to death). I think the cost of Apprentice level learning books should be reduced. Once I got above level 16 or so things got considerably easier and now I'm level 34 (and considerably overleveled for the part of the main quest I'm in--my last save was right outside the Living Temple).
The characters are a lot better than Skyrim's but I find the companion system annoying--I like Jespar and I want to go adventuring with him, not just schlepping from point A to point B on story quests. Did you prevent the player from hiring the companions permanently to prevent the player from having a meatshield in fights?
E: The real biggest problem I have with Enderal is that it's not an SSE mod, and I'm stuck with the awful old executable with its memory limits and its unstable framerates, and occasional CTDs, and the unstable framerate was greatly exacerbated by installing aMidianBorn's texture packs to banish the ugly vanilla Skyrim textures. I use 4K texture mods with wild abandon in Special Edition and it runs perfectly. Nothing to be done about it though, since you'd probably have to redesign half the mod to work in SSE...
This game reminds me a hell of a lot of Fallout New Vegas, a game I always thought was a much better use of the Fallout 3 engine than Fallout 3, with its much tighter plotting, better quests, deeper RPG mechanics, more focused world design, and minimal level scaling. I do think New Vegas does it better with the nonlinear plot that is fed into by dozens of side quests, but you didn't have Obsidian's budget so that's to be expected. I like finally being able to play a Skyrim-based game that lets you get into serious trouble wandering into high-level areas, and if you survive that trouble, twink yourself out with awesome loot, just like you could in Baldur's Gate II. The verticality of the map compared to Skyrim was annoying at first, but I got used to it.
Combat feels a lot better than Skyrim, especially with the Wildcat mod. It's still not that great but it at least has some degree of balance now. I like the level system but I don't know how I feel about the "learning books". Not only is it a contrived and "gamey" way of handling character progression, the cost of the books is extremely prohibitive in the early game and I spent around six hours with my skill levels in the 15-20 range and dozens of unspent learning points, and going was extremely rough at first and I godmoded through several early fights that seemed completely unfair (wander into a cave, find two spiders, immediately get poisoned to death). I think the cost of Apprentice level learning books should be reduced. Once I got above level 16 or so things got considerably easier and now I'm level 34 (and considerably overleveled for the part of the main quest I'm in--my last save was right outside the Living Temple).
The characters are a lot better than Skyrim's but I find the companion system annoying--I like Jespar and I want to go adventuring with him, not just schlepping from point A to point B on story quests. Did you prevent the player from hiring the companions permanently to prevent the player from having a meatshield in fights?
E: The real biggest problem I have with Enderal is that it's not an SSE mod, and I'm stuck with the awful old executable with its memory limits and its unstable framerates, and occasional CTDs, and the unstable framerate was greatly exacerbated by installing aMidianBorn's texture packs to banish the ugly vanilla Skyrim textures. I use 4K texture mods with wild abandon in Special Edition and it runs perfectly. Nothing to be done about it though, since you'd probably have to redesign half the mod to work in SSE...
26.12.2017 06:30Woolie Wool wrote: 35 hours into this now, I've been playing it all weekend instead of celebrating Christmas like path-abiding people....
but this thread is very much dyslexicfaser's Let' Play
(I won't edit your post though, it doesn't contain spoilers
)
26.12.2017 06:30Woolie Wool wrote: The characters are a lot better than Skyrim's but I find the companion system annoying--I like Jespar and I want to go adventuring with him, not just schlepping from point A to point B on story quests. Did you prevent the player from hiring the companions permanently to prevent the player from having a meatshield in fights?
But they could do that and still give you mercenaries and thanes and such like in Skyrim, and they don't, so the meatshield thing is probably also true.
Anyway, update incoming.
- I'd like to inform the farmer outside that her tenant seems to have come down with a bad case of eaten by rats, but she doesn't even have a name so that doesn't go anywhere.
Think I'm going to take a day off from this saving the world business. Prophets get vacation days right?
- Heading north takes me to a picturesque little town called Bridgehead Farm built hand in hand with one of the ancient ruins.
The poster reads, “Once magic runneth through your veins, / Be wary not to go astray! / The Order’s help you shall then seek / And Malphas words you need to heed / Else your magic will go wild / And death will soon make you its child.”
Now sure this almost sounds like some Dragon Age ‘keep the mages contained and docile’ plot, and I’d like to learn more, but more importantly...
Hopefully Death is actually an anthropomorph in this universe, or whoever’s in charge of posters for the Order is going waaaaay too far to try and rhyme that last couplet. ‘Make you its child?’ That’s awful.
I wish I knew my standing in the Order so I could know if I can fire that guy.
- Crimes against literature aside, if Skyrim's Markarth is 'people living in the ancient ruins (including the Dwemer's ridiculous stone beds)’, then this is 'people building their town on top of the ancient ruins.’ Equally interesting but very different narrative. Markarth feels kind of stuck in the past, while this little town feels… kind of like a massacre waiting to happen.
Because Enderal.
The local owner of the rustic, hay-filled inn The Red Ox is pretty boring for a guy named – conveniently enough – The Red Ox. A name like that deserves a story more than the innkeeper of the Fat Loran ever did.
But The Red Ox is completely taciturn, and not in an interesting way. Some innkeepers offer rumors and news, or buys and sells goods, but Ox only offers a bed for the night.
It's a shame I can't seem to enter the door to the ruins but presumably they will come into play later?
- Following the next map marker, I find myself in a hella fancy old tomb with the very unfancy name of Grel's Grave.
It's a level of difficulty below where I've been lately, but it looks nice.
All the tombs and ruins I've been spelunking lately that made me think, you know, maybe I need to get in on that. I’m undead too; my people just seem to congregate in picturesque ruins with endless waterfalls and stuff. All the Darkhand liches have sweet digs like that. Dzamael Darkhand had that prime real estate in the catacombs under Ark, even.
Grel’s Grave is centrally located right in the breadbasket of Enderal, picturesque, lots of open space, all-natural wisp lighting… very feng shui.
Those old Enderaleans knew how to build for the afterlife. I feel like I could learn a thing or two.
- Working my way southeast into the mountains, the way is blocked by a much tougher band of Lost Ones camped out in some kind of unfinished defensive works. Watchtowers, walls, like a half-completed skeleton in the snow where the workers just gave up and died halfway through.
Near as I can tell, there are two passes through the mountains to the eastern half of the continent and they are held by Bandits and Undead respectively.
No wonder you never see Fallout- or Skyrim-esque wandering merchants in Enderal, anyone that’s tried is dead as doornails. Some have tried, I think; every once in a while you’ll see a busted up wagon along the road with bags of flour or apples or spare parts or whatever.
Considering how careful SureAI was to answer questions like ‘but what do they eat?’ with Ark’s extensive farming community, I have to assume they carefully considered the economy and then recognized that all the wandering merchants have long since been killed and eaten.
- A stone’s throw the undead-infested pass, there’s a sweet-looking stonehenge overlooking the entire valley.
I boldly assail the historic landmark, defeating its denizens in honorable combat - this is the story that I will be telling around the Order’s huge war operations table, later.
- Not seeing any more new things to explore nearby on the minimap but not quite having my fill of adventure yet, I dig out the ‘Portal To A Strange Place’ that’s been sitting in my pack since I found it under the city, as part of a little tale of sibling inheritance and what kind of sounds like a pact to enter undeath together.
The ‘Strange Place’ is just a clifftop peak overlooking what I think is Riverville, of all places. There’s a few chests and a handful of wisp enemies, no big deal.
Kind of disappointed at the lack of further story, but I do like gushing about the views in this game.
- Turns out I’m close by that dragon lair I first noticed all the way back from the quest with the Aged Man, so I start the laborious process of trying to scale halfway round the mountain.
I pop out halfway up a cliff overlooking the dragon’s lair, which involves the dragon perched atop a triangular sort of ruin like a rooster waiting to crow. He periodically patrols out lazily in a circle before settling back on his perch, which is a pretty sweet idle animation.
I decide to get tricky. I’m at the extreme outer edge of my range, so I stop time (I can do that for 4 seconds at a time, now) and loft a bunch of arrows at him.
Of course, that only does about a tenth of his health in damage, and then trying to hit a dragon in midair is really hard, so…
Things didn’t work out.
- Then I realize there’s a ‘Dead Dragon’ skeleton nearby, and I think… a dragon-on-dragon kaiju fight might be just what the doctor ordered.
But unfortunately, Revive III isn’t quite up to the task. And he notices. I’m still fumbling for my summons when I eat a fire breath and die.
- Third time, I just make an elemental to draw the flame breath, run up and bury both swords in the dragon’s flank. That took care of things.
There is such a thing as trying to be too cute, I guess. It’s lucky that the game makes the dragons land to fight you, or they would be really nasty.
- After that I headed for the castle on the horizon that you can see from the peak shot. That looks like a happening place, and I want to be there!
Unfortunately, nice sunsets are really all I get out of this little adventure. Couldn’t find a way to scale the cliffs, so I just kind of lurk around like some sort of water monster for a while, slowly circling the castle.
- Getting back on track, I meet up with Jespar back in Ark.
Since I don’t really want to just come right out and ask ‘Hey Jespar are you sadistically murdering criminals maybe?’ I engage in some light smalltalk first.
There’s some philosophy traded back and forth about who’s at fault in a domestic violence situation. My answer, ‘society’, is apparently the safe answer, on the grounds that it absolves people of responsibility for their actions.
Jespar seems ready for life as a lawyer if his primary job of mercenary-for-hire and his backup job of doom-train-engineer fall through.
Not sure what that’s about, exactly, except maybe to lay the groundwork for what’s probably going to be some weighty questions about the nature of Justice, later.
- The dropped bomb, of course, is that ‘Knock knock’ line we put together from the letters is a passcode he and his sister shared when they were looking to go out on adventures as kids.
The Prophetess points out with all the delicacy of a battering ram that the High Ones could have reached through the stone and given his sister Adalia the power – and crazy – to become something like the Bonejudge.
Which, if that’s a thing they can do, Why am I still holding onto that one from Calia’s quest? Why are we putting it in our anti-High One macguffin?!
This is all going to end in tears.
The Takeaway:
I’ve reached the point where just wandering around is starting to seem a little same-y. There’s only so many undead and bandits you can clear out of ruined towers. I still have a couple of quests saved up in the old quest-log for when the main quest goes on break, but otherwise I think I’ll be focusing exclusively on the main quest for a while.
And what an emotionally gutting questline it’s shaping up to be! But then… this is Enderal. When is it not?
Think I'm going to take a day off from this saving the world business. Prophets get vacation days right?
- Heading north takes me to a picturesque little town called Bridgehead Farm built hand in hand with one of the ancient ruins.
The poster reads, “Once magic runneth through your veins, / Be wary not to go astray! / The Order’s help you shall then seek / And Malphas words you need to heed / Else your magic will go wild / And death will soon make you its child.”
Now sure this almost sounds like some Dragon Age ‘keep the mages contained and docile’ plot, and I’d like to learn more, but more importantly...
Hopefully Death is actually an anthropomorph in this universe, or whoever’s in charge of posters for the Order is going waaaaay too far to try and rhyme that last couplet. ‘Make you its child?’ That’s awful.
I wish I knew my standing in the Order so I could know if I can fire that guy.
- Crimes against literature aside, if Skyrim's Markarth is 'people living in the ancient ruins (including the Dwemer's ridiculous stone beds)’, then this is 'people building their town on top of the ancient ruins.’ Equally interesting but very different narrative. Markarth feels kind of stuck in the past, while this little town feels… kind of like a massacre waiting to happen.
Because Enderal.
The local owner of the rustic, hay-filled inn The Red Ox is pretty boring for a guy named – conveniently enough – The Red Ox. A name like that deserves a story more than the innkeeper of the Fat Loran ever did.
But The Red Ox is completely taciturn, and not in an interesting way. Some innkeepers offer rumors and news, or buys and sells goods, but Ox only offers a bed for the night.
It's a shame I can't seem to enter the door to the ruins but presumably they will come into play later?
- Following the next map marker, I find myself in a hella fancy old tomb with the very unfancy name of Grel's Grave.
It's a level of difficulty below where I've been lately, but it looks nice.
All the tombs and ruins I've been spelunking lately that made me think, you know, maybe I need to get in on that. I’m undead too; my people just seem to congregate in picturesque ruins with endless waterfalls and stuff. All the Darkhand liches have sweet digs like that. Dzamael Darkhand had that prime real estate in the catacombs under Ark, even.
Grel’s Grave is centrally located right in the breadbasket of Enderal, picturesque, lots of open space, all-natural wisp lighting… very feng shui.
Those old Enderaleans knew how to build for the afterlife. I feel like I could learn a thing or two.
- Working my way southeast into the mountains, the way is blocked by a much tougher band of Lost Ones camped out in some kind of unfinished defensive works. Watchtowers, walls, like a half-completed skeleton in the snow where the workers just gave up and died halfway through.
Near as I can tell, there are two passes through the mountains to the eastern half of the continent and they are held by Bandits and Undead respectively.
No wonder you never see Fallout- or Skyrim-esque wandering merchants in Enderal, anyone that’s tried is dead as doornails. Some have tried, I think; every once in a while you’ll see a busted up wagon along the road with bags of flour or apples or spare parts or whatever.
Considering how careful SureAI was to answer questions like ‘but what do they eat?’ with Ark’s extensive farming community, I have to assume they carefully considered the economy and then recognized that all the wandering merchants have long since been killed and eaten.
- A stone’s throw the undead-infested pass, there’s a sweet-looking stonehenge overlooking the entire valley.
I boldly assail the historic landmark, defeating its denizens in honorable combat - this is the story that I will be telling around the Order’s huge war operations table, later.
- Not seeing any more new things to explore nearby on the minimap but not quite having my fill of adventure yet, I dig out the ‘Portal To A Strange Place’ that’s been sitting in my pack since I found it under the city, as part of a little tale of sibling inheritance and what kind of sounds like a pact to enter undeath together.
The ‘Strange Place’ is just a clifftop peak overlooking what I think is Riverville, of all places. There’s a few chests and a handful of wisp enemies, no big deal.
Kind of disappointed at the lack of further story, but I do like gushing about the views in this game.
- Turns out I’m close by that dragon lair I first noticed all the way back from the quest with the Aged Man, so I start the laborious process of trying to scale halfway round the mountain.
I pop out halfway up a cliff overlooking the dragon’s lair, which involves the dragon perched atop a triangular sort of ruin like a rooster waiting to crow. He periodically patrols out lazily in a circle before settling back on his perch, which is a pretty sweet idle animation.
I decide to get tricky. I’m at the extreme outer edge of my range, so I stop time (I can do that for 4 seconds at a time, now) and loft a bunch of arrows at him.
Of course, that only does about a tenth of his health in damage, and then trying to hit a dragon in midair is really hard, so…
Things didn’t work out.
- Then I realize there’s a ‘Dead Dragon’ skeleton nearby, and I think… a dragon-on-dragon kaiju fight might be just what the doctor ordered.
But unfortunately, Revive III isn’t quite up to the task. And he notices. I’m still fumbling for my summons when I eat a fire breath and die.
- Third time, I just make an elemental to draw the flame breath, run up and bury both swords in the dragon’s flank. That took care of things.
There is such a thing as trying to be too cute, I guess. It’s lucky that the game makes the dragons land to fight you, or they would be really nasty.
- After that I headed for the castle on the horizon that you can see from the peak shot. That looks like a happening place, and I want to be there!
Unfortunately, nice sunsets are really all I get out of this little adventure. Couldn’t find a way to scale the cliffs, so I just kind of lurk around like some sort of water monster for a while, slowly circling the castle.
- Getting back on track, I meet up with Jespar back in Ark.
Since I don’t really want to just come right out and ask ‘Hey Jespar are you sadistically murdering criminals maybe?’ I engage in some light smalltalk first.
There’s some philosophy traded back and forth about who’s at fault in a domestic violence situation. My answer, ‘society’, is apparently the safe answer, on the grounds that it absolves people of responsibility for their actions.
Jespar seems ready for life as a lawyer if his primary job of mercenary-for-hire and his backup job of doom-train-engineer fall through.
Not sure what that’s about, exactly, except maybe to lay the groundwork for what’s probably going to be some weighty questions about the nature of Justice, later.
- The dropped bomb, of course, is that ‘Knock knock’ line we put together from the letters is a passcode he and his sister shared when they were looking to go out on adventures as kids.
The Prophetess points out with all the delicacy of a battering ram that the High Ones could have reached through the stone and given his sister Adalia the power – and crazy – to become something like the Bonejudge.
Which, if that’s a thing they can do, Why am I still holding onto that one from Calia’s quest? Why are we putting it in our anti-High One macguffin?!
This is all going to end in tears.
The Takeaway:
I’ve reached the point where just wandering around is starting to seem a little same-y. There’s only so many undead and bandits you can clear out of ruined towers. I still have a couple of quests saved up in the old quest-log for when the main quest goes on break, but otherwise I think I’ll be focusing exclusively on the main quest for a while.
And what an emotionally gutting questline it’s shaping up to be! But then… this is Enderal. When is it not?
01.01.2018 08:32dyslexicfaser wrote:
The Takeaway:
I’ve reached the point where just wandering around is starting to seem a little same-y. There’s only so many undead and bandits you can clear out of ruined towers.
I don't mind the bandits and undead, they are just something to get past to see the sights. In a game like this, I am a tourist, wanting to see it all, inside and out.
- So I meet up with Jespar in Duneville.
Look at that poor bastard. Like his world is ending.
- The music is, as ever, on point. Arabian Nights-esque violin and some kind of wind instrument, like wind across the sands, a mournful piano creeping in… and here and there, a strain of pure, slithering menace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXF5Pg6 ... uGiATi_tYY
- So I head out into the desert with Jespar at my heels… and immediately get distracted by a ruin called Old Ishmartep.
That resolution to ignore the side stuff and finish the main quests lasted long.
- The Tomb Guardians inside are using the models of Skyrim’s mid-level Falmer: needle teeth, nonexistent nose, pointed ears, near-blind pink eyes, blue-green veins shining through translucent skin. Loincloth, greaves, gauntlets, the multi-eyed masks. Creepy as shit, in a phrase.
It’s a much different feel than exploring a Falmer-infested ruin, though. Fighting the Falmer always felt like putting down some piteous creatures. Fighting the Tomb Guardians feel like fighting a small army.
Part of it’s the lighting;
The tomb isn’t well-lit exactly but there are cracks in the walls here and there letting in natural light. There are lit fire braziers. No bioluminescent green glowing fungus to be found.
Part of it’s in the fighting itself;
Falmer tend to chitinous equipment and armor and domesticate chaurus bugs; the Tomb Guardians are dressed in simple cloth, but well-equipped with silver-steel swords, shields of bone and bows of wood and horn. It’s not like hideous pus beetle animal husbandry would be easy, probably! But fighting with well-forged swords and shields makes the Tomb Guardians feel more civilized.
- Most of it is in the wordless storytelling you get from exploring the tomb, though.
You can find bags of gunpowder. Mining equipment. Maps.
I don’t know if Old Ishmartep wants to conquer the surface world the way the Falmer do, but they already feel like they’ll have a better shot at it than the Falmer.
There’s a zone in the dungeon called the Nest, and I figure, “Oh, here’s the spider section.” There’s usually a spider section. Agnod, ancient crashed spaceship, had a spider section.
Well, not exactly; this zone involves the Tomb Guardians fighting off an encroaching sand spider nest. Within a minute the spiders are dead and the Tomb Guardians haven’t lost a fighter.
I have to murder spiders all the time too, they get everywhere! It feels like we have so much in common!
- After completing the simple fetch quest to unlock the door to his ornate tomb, Ishmartep himself emerges from his coffin in beams of light, a shriveled king complete with a golden crown upon his head.
Given the way he one-shotted my ice elemental, I assume he’s probably at the level of one of the Lost One Lords, but popping the timestop power and double power attacking him a couple times meant I didn’t have to find out.
That power is honestly the most ridiculous so far; I leveled twice in this dusty dungeon, and put both points into taking it to Level 3 (12 seconds, Dio Brando ain’t shit in comparison)
- Well, a quick teleport back to Duneville to sell an armory’s worth of silver-steel later:
Surmak Saltblow looks ridiculous with his mouth hanging open, you’d think no one had ever jumped up on his counter to talk to him before.
Actually, he just tends to leave his gob open in general, giving him this constant look of gormless surprise, it’s kind of funny.
It’s also pretty nice that everything in Duneville (except the jail) is in one zone, so you can hear the bard from the tavern as you shop.
Anyway, that over with, I can get back on the road to Jespar’s meetup with his sister.
- The old Dal’Varek estate is in the midst of an oasis in the desert, more of a jungle biome than anything. Not what I was expecting.
Aside from being attacked by panthers and lions, I also have to fight some Marauder-type bandits. One of them steps up the usual Enderalean insult game by calling me a ‘fucking bitch.’
Welp.
Jespar also has this line when he watches me tear the soul out of a bandit and eat it to refresh myself. His reaction is:
“Who needs potions when he knows Entropy?”
Jespar’s good people. I mean, for an undead ghost-summoning swordswoman such as myself. It’s probably for the best that the game doesn’t have Calia react to the Entropy thing, although that would be pretty interesting in its own way.
- Jespar and Adila’s meetup spot is in their old kids’ hidey-hole, which turns out to be an abandoned shadowsteel mine.
Well, ‘abandoned.’
Miners moved in at some point, and were then massacred by Lost Ones when the, you know, Red Madness and everything happened.
Jespar’s childhood hideout was built on top of a mine, which was built on top of a crypt.
Welcome to Enderal.
- In fairness, it looks totally sweet, and I'd want to explore it if I were some stupid kid, too.
- So the plan is for Jespar to take the lift down to meet her, and I’m going to have to fight my way through the crypt to come out in the bushes and spy on them.
I’m not even surprised.
Gives me a chance to try out the new Za Warudo power, and wow. Timestop, where have you been all my life?
It was pretty neat when the Lost Ones heard me walking around, opened the door and waltzed out of the crypt and into the mine area. But otherwise the crypt is surprisingly small and easy to get through, which I appreciate.
- Anyway! Adila has a new victim – because of course she was the one murderin’ dudes, nobody except Jespar believed otherwise for a second – and this one’s a little special. One of the guys who killed their parents and burned their house to the ground.
Now, I’m not entirely sure if that means he’s from the Relata – the mob – or one of the corrupt judges that Jespar’s dad tried to bring down, or what. It doesn’t really matter in the end, I guess. He’s just a prop in this tale of sibling… whatever.
He tries to talk her down for a few minutes, while I wonder when exactly I’m supposed to pop out of the bushes and shank her in the back.
- Jespar tries to get her to give him the Stone and then leave free, but anyone who’s ever seen Gollum and that ring knows that wasn’t going to end well, either.
Adila summons up a blast of flame that sets both the victim and Jespar on fire.
Welp.
Adila’s pretty good, but she’s no… well, me.
The Takeaway:
It’s kind of shocking, how quickly that was over. Constantine's death I saw coming, with the chanting in elder tongues and madman ramblings; Jespar's I didn't. Which I guess is the point, right? Jespar isn’t a Capital Letter Emissary, he’s just a guy. And when you play with fire, when you involve yourself in big events… sometimes you get burnt. Luck runs out.
I don’t think there was any way to avoid that; that would be a pretty enormous story beat going completely differently if I could walk up and shank Adila in the back while they were talking.
But I think it says something that I kind of want to reload and try it anyway.
Look at that poor bastard. Like his world is ending.
- The music is, as ever, on point. Arabian Nights-esque violin and some kind of wind instrument, like wind across the sands, a mournful piano creeping in… and here and there, a strain of pure, slithering menace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXF5Pg6 ... uGiATi_tYY
- So I head out into the desert with Jespar at my heels… and immediately get distracted by a ruin called Old Ishmartep.
That resolution to ignore the side stuff and finish the main quests lasted long.
- The Tomb Guardians inside are using the models of Skyrim’s mid-level Falmer: needle teeth, nonexistent nose, pointed ears, near-blind pink eyes, blue-green veins shining through translucent skin. Loincloth, greaves, gauntlets, the multi-eyed masks. Creepy as shit, in a phrase.
It’s a much different feel than exploring a Falmer-infested ruin, though. Fighting the Falmer always felt like putting down some piteous creatures. Fighting the Tomb Guardians feel like fighting a small army.
Part of it’s the lighting;
The tomb isn’t well-lit exactly but there are cracks in the walls here and there letting in natural light. There are lit fire braziers. No bioluminescent green glowing fungus to be found.
Part of it’s in the fighting itself;
Falmer tend to chitinous equipment and armor and domesticate chaurus bugs; the Tomb Guardians are dressed in simple cloth, but well-equipped with silver-steel swords, shields of bone and bows of wood and horn. It’s not like hideous pus beetle animal husbandry would be easy, probably! But fighting with well-forged swords and shields makes the Tomb Guardians feel more civilized.
- Most of it is in the wordless storytelling you get from exploring the tomb, though.
You can find bags of gunpowder. Mining equipment. Maps.
I don’t know if Old Ishmartep wants to conquer the surface world the way the Falmer do, but they already feel like they’ll have a better shot at it than the Falmer.
There’s a zone in the dungeon called the Nest, and I figure, “Oh, here’s the spider section.” There’s usually a spider section. Agnod, ancient crashed spaceship, had a spider section.
Well, not exactly; this zone involves the Tomb Guardians fighting off an encroaching sand spider nest. Within a minute the spiders are dead and the Tomb Guardians haven’t lost a fighter.
I have to murder spiders all the time too, they get everywhere! It feels like we have so much in common!
- After completing the simple fetch quest to unlock the door to his ornate tomb, Ishmartep himself emerges from his coffin in beams of light, a shriveled king complete with a golden crown upon his head.
Given the way he one-shotted my ice elemental, I assume he’s probably at the level of one of the Lost One Lords, but popping the timestop power and double power attacking him a couple times meant I didn’t have to find out.
That power is honestly the most ridiculous so far; I leveled twice in this dusty dungeon, and put both points into taking it to Level 3 (12 seconds, Dio Brando ain’t shit in comparison)
- Well, a quick teleport back to Duneville to sell an armory’s worth of silver-steel later:
Surmak Saltblow looks ridiculous with his mouth hanging open, you’d think no one had ever jumped up on his counter to talk to him before.
Actually, he just tends to leave his gob open in general, giving him this constant look of gormless surprise, it’s kind of funny.
It’s also pretty nice that everything in Duneville (except the jail) is in one zone, so you can hear the bard from the tavern as you shop.
Anyway, that over with, I can get back on the road to Jespar’s meetup with his sister.
- The old Dal’Varek estate is in the midst of an oasis in the desert, more of a jungle biome than anything. Not what I was expecting.
Aside from being attacked by panthers and lions, I also have to fight some Marauder-type bandits. One of them steps up the usual Enderalean insult game by calling me a ‘fucking bitch.’
Welp.
Jespar also has this line when he watches me tear the soul out of a bandit and eat it to refresh myself. His reaction is:
“Who needs potions when he knows Entropy?”
Jespar’s good people. I mean, for an undead ghost-summoning swordswoman such as myself. It’s probably for the best that the game doesn’t have Calia react to the Entropy thing, although that would be pretty interesting in its own way.
- Jespar and Adila’s meetup spot is in their old kids’ hidey-hole, which turns out to be an abandoned shadowsteel mine.
Well, ‘abandoned.’
Miners moved in at some point, and were then massacred by Lost Ones when the, you know, Red Madness and everything happened.
Jespar’s childhood hideout was built on top of a mine, which was built on top of a crypt.
Welcome to Enderal.
- In fairness, it looks totally sweet, and I'd want to explore it if I were some stupid kid, too.
- So the plan is for Jespar to take the lift down to meet her, and I’m going to have to fight my way through the crypt to come out in the bushes and spy on them.
I’m not even surprised.
Gives me a chance to try out the new Za Warudo power, and wow. Timestop, where have you been all my life?
It was pretty neat when the Lost Ones heard me walking around, opened the door and waltzed out of the crypt and into the mine area. But otherwise the crypt is surprisingly small and easy to get through, which I appreciate.
- Anyway! Adila has a new victim – because of course she was the one murderin’ dudes, nobody except Jespar believed otherwise for a second – and this one’s a little special. One of the guys who killed their parents and burned their house to the ground.
Now, I’m not entirely sure if that means he’s from the Relata – the mob – or one of the corrupt judges that Jespar’s dad tried to bring down, or what. It doesn’t really matter in the end, I guess. He’s just a prop in this tale of sibling… whatever.
He tries to talk her down for a few minutes, while I wonder when exactly I’m supposed to pop out of the bushes and shank her in the back.
- Jespar tries to get her to give him the Stone and then leave free, but anyone who’s ever seen Gollum and that ring knows that wasn’t going to end well, either.
Adila summons up a blast of flame that sets both the victim and Jespar on fire.
Welp.
Adila’s pretty good, but she’s no… well, me.
The Takeaway:
It’s kind of shocking, how quickly that was over. Constantine's death I saw coming, with the chanting in elder tongues and madman ramblings; Jespar's I didn't. Which I guess is the point, right? Jespar isn’t a Capital Letter Emissary, he’s just a guy. And when you play with fire, when you involve yourself in big events… sometimes you get burnt. Luck runs out.
I don’t think there was any way to avoid that; that would be a pretty enormous story beat going completely differently if I could walk up and shank Adila in the back while they were talking.
But I think it says something that I kind of want to reload and try it anyway.
Thank you for another episode!
Don't bother reloading. Simply load the game and walk away from where his body lies and towards the exit. Things will answer themselves.
Don't bother reloading. Simply load the game and walk away from where his body lies and towards the exit. Things will answer themselves.
Thanks dyslexicfaser!
Actually, that was exactly what I did - reload and tried it again. But as Ragnarok said, let the story play itself out, you are an observer to this harrowing scene.
Actually, that was exactly what I did - reload and tried it again. But as Ragnarok said, let the story play itself out, you are an observer to this harrowing scene.
Well, a quick teleport back to Duneville to sell an armory’s worth of silver-steel later:
- On the way out, the torch flames turn blue and who should appear?
Not a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.
I suppose it’s possible for her to sound more like a devil looking to strike a deal, but I’m not sure how.
- Now, the Veiled Woman is here to lay some facts on us in the way of all Oracle-type supporting characters, but trying to figure out what exactly she’s copping to is tricky.
Presumably part of that is, you know, fifth-dimensional being trying to talk down to a third-dimensional hairless ape. But also she just sounds suspicious as a fox trying to explain why she’s in this particular henhouse, but it’s okay, she’s on your side.
So I’m going to put on my critical reading glasses and examine every word.
- First off, she recognizes that maybe I’m a little peeved about that whole ‘getting Sirius and I discovered as stowaways, tied to a big rock, and dumped overboard’ thing from the start of the game.
She claims this was necessary, because of course.
She tells a tale where we made it to Enderal only to be found creeping overboard in the dead of night, only to be caught and killed in hopes of a promotion to Petty Officer First Class or whatever. That’s what would have happened without her interference, she said.
That could be true. Those of us without extra-dimensional future-senses can’t exactly check one way or the other.
But how exactly was getting us murdered faster any better? Why did it need to happen that way? Did I need to doubt my own survival (dumped overboard rather than stabbed through the head) to get this undead Prophetess thing to work? Is it something to do with the tower I found myself washed up on the shore next to? Is there someone or something with their eye on Enderal, and the little life-death switcheroo had to happen in open waters?
Give me something to work with here, lady.
- Aside from killing me (and, to be fair, bringing me back as a sword-swinging, magic-slinging badass... that still dies to the occasional snow wolf), of course, there’s also the bit I just learned:
That the Veiled Woman killed Dal’Galar and took Calia to that village she murdered like a chess player setting up her pieces on the board.
I appreciate that the game lets me call her out on it; presumably that’s why one of my readers suggested I do Calia’s quest first.
Her response is pretty interesting. “You claim I took part in the death of the grieving man… But was that really me, I wonder? Or only a splinter of what I really am? I have many forms, Prophetess…”
Now, aside from being a pretty piss-poor excuse (Was it really me that shot you, or should you really be angry at my right hand? Hmm? Think about it), this suggests that maybe all of the pieces here, at least on the Emissary side of things, have their own Veiled Woman? And this one is mine.
- There’s also some talk about the Cycle threatening all parallel realities, what she calls ‘branches’ of reality, of which this is only one. But that doesn’t really hit home; I mean, I have enough trouble looking after this branch. Those other branches’ Prophetesses can pull their own weight, thanks. The slackers.
- One particularly noteworthy line is, when asked if she is one of the High Ones, that “High Ones, humanity, the Emissaries, ... are all just pieces of the same game.”
It’s said in a tone that suggests the Veiled Woman is above it all. A player, not a piece of the game.
I imagine she’s trying to suggest she’s the player on ‘our’ side, but frankly for all I know she could be playing this game against herself.
- But she “doesn’t like being seen as a destroyer … Which is why I will wipe away my debt, which was never there to begin with.”
Boom! Jespar, back to life.
So apparently for every two people she has killed, she can be talked into bringing one back! Or maybe I hurt her feelings?
So she refuses to take credit for that other Veiled Woman that killed Dal’Galar, but on a whim she decided to make good on it anyway. Pure whimsy.
- Hey Jespar, you doing okay buddy?
He’s fine.
He asks after his sister first thing, and… yyyyeah, I killed her really dead.
So Jespar gets his alone time, while I head back to Duneville and sell off all his sister’s worldly possessions. Her robe is pretty sweet-looking, with a design like a hand grabbed the red tabard bit and charred an imprint into it.
I give it even odds whether that will turn out to be important – the sign of the High Ones or something – or just something to give a little flair to her character model. Of course, I sold it away immediately.
The Takeaway:
As quickly and senselessly as Jespar died, the man’s back in the saddle. I wonder if he got superpowers from it like me and Calia did? We could be like, the Three Amigos! Sounds better than ‘those three freaks’, anyway.
So that makes two Black Stones accounted for. A quest popped up to track down Calia, and I’m thinking I’ll do that before turning these stones in to Arantheal, in case she wants to try using it to heal her demon after all.
I mean, it’d probably be a terrible idea and result in horrible consequences for everyone involved, but everybody’s free to make their own mistakes. I know I make enough of them, starting from coming to Enderal in the first place on down through things like getting sucker punched and trapped in a rapidly-flooding Agnod, down to today when I let Jespar go up like a Roman candle.
Not a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.
I suppose it’s possible for her to sound more like a devil looking to strike a deal, but I’m not sure how.
- Now, the Veiled Woman is here to lay some facts on us in the way of all Oracle-type supporting characters, but trying to figure out what exactly she’s copping to is tricky.
Presumably part of that is, you know, fifth-dimensional being trying to talk down to a third-dimensional hairless ape. But also she just sounds suspicious as a fox trying to explain why she’s in this particular henhouse, but it’s okay, she’s on your side.
So I’m going to put on my critical reading glasses and examine every word.
- First off, she recognizes that maybe I’m a little peeved about that whole ‘getting Sirius and I discovered as stowaways, tied to a big rock, and dumped overboard’ thing from the start of the game.
She claims this was necessary, because of course.
She tells a tale where we made it to Enderal only to be found creeping overboard in the dead of night, only to be caught and killed in hopes of a promotion to Petty Officer First Class or whatever. That’s what would have happened without her interference, she said.
That could be true. Those of us without extra-dimensional future-senses can’t exactly check one way or the other.
But how exactly was getting us murdered faster any better? Why did it need to happen that way? Did I need to doubt my own survival (dumped overboard rather than stabbed through the head) to get this undead Prophetess thing to work? Is it something to do with the tower I found myself washed up on the shore next to? Is there someone or something with their eye on Enderal, and the little life-death switcheroo had to happen in open waters?
Give me something to work with here, lady.
- Aside from killing me (and, to be fair, bringing me back as a sword-swinging, magic-slinging badass... that still dies to the occasional snow wolf), of course, there’s also the bit I just learned:
That the Veiled Woman killed Dal’Galar and took Calia to that village she murdered like a chess player setting up her pieces on the board.
I appreciate that the game lets me call her out on it; presumably that’s why one of my readers suggested I do Calia’s quest first.
Her response is pretty interesting. “You claim I took part in the death of the grieving man… But was that really me, I wonder? Or only a splinter of what I really am? I have many forms, Prophetess…”
Now, aside from being a pretty piss-poor excuse (Was it really me that shot you, or should you really be angry at my right hand? Hmm? Think about it), this suggests that maybe all of the pieces here, at least on the Emissary side of things, have their own Veiled Woman? And this one is mine.
- There’s also some talk about the Cycle threatening all parallel realities, what she calls ‘branches’ of reality, of which this is only one. But that doesn’t really hit home; I mean, I have enough trouble looking after this branch. Those other branches’ Prophetesses can pull their own weight, thanks. The slackers.
- One particularly noteworthy line is, when asked if she is one of the High Ones, that “High Ones, humanity, the Emissaries, ... are all just pieces of the same game.”
It’s said in a tone that suggests the Veiled Woman is above it all. A player, not a piece of the game.
I imagine she’s trying to suggest she’s the player on ‘our’ side, but frankly for all I know she could be playing this game against herself.
- But she “doesn’t like being seen as a destroyer … Which is why I will wipe away my debt, which was never there to begin with.”
Boom! Jespar, back to life.
So apparently for every two people she has killed, she can be talked into bringing one back! Or maybe I hurt her feelings?
So she refuses to take credit for that other Veiled Woman that killed Dal’Galar, but on a whim she decided to make good on it anyway. Pure whimsy.
- Hey Jespar, you doing okay buddy?
He’s fine.
He asks after his sister first thing, and… yyyyeah, I killed her really dead.
So Jespar gets his alone time, while I head back to Duneville and sell off all his sister’s worldly possessions. Her robe is pretty sweet-looking, with a design like a hand grabbed the red tabard bit and charred an imprint into it.
I give it even odds whether that will turn out to be important – the sign of the High Ones or something – or just something to give a little flair to her character model. Of course, I sold it away immediately.
The Takeaway:
As quickly and senselessly as Jespar died, the man’s back in the saddle. I wonder if he got superpowers from it like me and Calia did? We could be like, the Three Amigos! Sounds better than ‘those three freaks’, anyway.
So that makes two Black Stones accounted for. A quest popped up to track down Calia, and I’m thinking I’ll do that before turning these stones in to Arantheal, in case she wants to try using it to heal her demon after all.
I mean, it’d probably be a terrible idea and result in horrible consequences for everyone involved, but everybody’s free to make their own mistakes. I know I make enough of them, starting from coming to Enderal in the first place on down through things like getting sucker punched and trapped in a rapidly-flooding Agnod, down to today when I let Jespar go up like a Roman candle.
for the sake of curiosity would you prefer to romance calia or jespar? both are up for grabs regardless of gender and quite personally regardless of what gender i play as i always went for calia............... either way the "romance" quest will trigger a decent while after you get the 3rd black stone which mind you is the creepiest of the bunch i must say
19.01.2018 05:59draneiwow2 wrote: for the sake of curiosity would you prefer to romance calia or jespar? both are up for grabs regardless of gender and quite personally regardless of what gender i play as i always went for calia............... either way the "romance" quest will trigger a decent while after you get the 3rd black stone which mind you is the creepiest of the bunch i must say
Calia's cute, but kind of a doom n' gloom type of girl.
I am embarrassed by your "impressions," by how much I missed by not thinking deeply about some of the dialogue such as your analysis of the veiled woman's remarks. There are so many little details you discuss (and some larger ones as well) that I just glossed over -- do quest, sell, boost stats, do next quest, etc. I feel like you could turn this into a PhD dissertation! (Or maybe a black & yellow "Enderal for Dummies.")
Or like "swords don't kill people, people kill people" to misquote the NRA.
(Was it really me that shot you, or should you really be angry at my right hand? Hmm? Think about it)
Jespar is back from the dead. But are you, Prophetess? 
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