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The fight on the ship was where I finally accepted that every instance of combat was going to end up with everything on fire, cursed, or both. And voting Skulltula for the Bone Spider if it's visually similar, WHY?! if not. edit: are there any other encounters on the boat? On my playthrough, Fane was... interested in learning about carnality.
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Nov 7, 2021 18:40
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 15:14 |
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I scoured the boat from top to bottom, so I don't think so. The only reason we didn't get to see the 'Fane learns what sex is' scene is because we're playing as him.
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Nov 7, 2021 18:56
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Negative_Earth posted:The fight on the ship was where I finally accepted that every instance of combat was going to end up with everything on fire, cursed, or both.
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Nov 7, 2021 19:08
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So, first of all: I forgot to trim Fane’s hair again. I get it done at the end of this update. Last update was a bit of a doozy! We got into a massive fight; we visited not just our god, but the rest of the Seven, and they’re all in bad ways; we got closer to our companions and we learned more about their stories; and everyone died. All we have to do to make it to Reaper’s Coast is to board this little skiff, and the body of Act Two will be open to us. So let’s not delay!   : Reaper’s CoastHuh. It’s shittier than I imagined for a place called Reaper’s Coast. Tarquin and Gareth were both on the boat with us when we landed, and they’re pretty quick to vanish into the beach without another word to us. A puddle of ooze sits at where we landed our skiff. And it’s raining and dreary; it’s just a bummer of an atmosphere, really. Sebille has something to say, though. Her and not anyone else.   : You enjoy your alcohol, if I remember right. I’ll make sure the first round is on me when we find the nearest establishment. : You celebrate too early.: To be Godwoken is all well and good, but above all I’ve yet to find the Master. Somewhere further inland Roost Anlon breathes. All I have to do now is pick up his scent and make his last breath worth my while.Well, she seems ready and excited, at least.   From the looks of things, we landed next to an abandoned wharf. There’s a rotten skeleton of a ship (in case you thought we were past that aesthetic) crashed up against the rocks, and there’s a pier just beside me that looks like it’s going to sink into the water if I step on it.  Poison puddles dot the beach every few steps, with piles of fish stocked on top of them,possibly spawning them. The area looks like it’s been lived in, or built – there’s some evidence of paved roads and old, broken stone walls, but it also looks like it’s been abandoned for a century.  Looting through the piles of fish gets me poisoned fish, appropriately enough. Eating fish raw is generally a bad idea, but they do grant a temporary +1 to Intelligence, and they can be cooked. Food is pretty weak in the Divinity series, though, and you’d be better off drinking an Intelligence potion or something.  Very close to where I landed is a Waypoint. It’s not very useful since the Lady Vengeance is, herself, a Waypoint, so I don’t need to go to the beach first to reach her.  The beach is, in general, a pretty bare and naked place to be. There’s poison; there’s fish piles; there’s the occasional barrel and the occasional story told through the environment. Nothing terribly interested or worth talking about, which makes my job easier.  If any of your people have any points invested in Lucky Charm, though, it’s always a good idea to rifle through every pile of fish you find! This ring offers +1 Hydrosophist and +1 Huntsman. I slip it onto Lohse to make her better at healing.   Someone was fishing here, and from the look of their loot, they either came here often or they weren’t planning on leaving any time soon. There’s also an empty wicker basket and a fishing rod on the ground beside me. Not great signs, all told.  The beach is winding mess of overgrown brush, raised sand dunes, and marked dirt roads. It’s not a maze by any stretch but you could spend a few minutes wandering around if you were trying to pick it clean.  Winding around the pathway, I come across… a beached shark, surrounded by sea bream that’s been tainted by the Void. Not a healthy combination. There’s a nonzero chance that I may end up fighting this shark if it ate something Void-tainted.  You can eat the Void-tainted fish, but on top of Poisoning you (not a problem with Fane, of course), it’ll also give Diseased, which normal fish normally don’t, and since the fish was Void-tainted, it’ll drop cursed blood when you bite into it, which will give anyone standing in it Decaying. It’s an especially nasty thing to eat in a fight!  Let’s see what’s the deal with this shark.  : If you hold still for a moment, I can get you safely back into the ocean’s waters, shark. : It gasps in the air, struggling for the breath to speak. Its own blood froths at its mouth. : With strength and teeth like yours, there’s little you ought to fear in the sea. : … Surely you’d find more comfort in the water?: It summons the energy to snap at you, thrashing in the sand. You jump back. : The only thing that could scare something as fearsome as a shark into wanting to die on the beach would be a Voidwoken.: … I can empathize with not wanting to face something like that. : Monsters in the deep… *gasp*… the world is dying… world is dying…: The shark lays there gasping quietly in the sunshine. Blood bubbles as its mouth. You leave it to die and turn away.This shark really, really doesn’t want to go back into the ocean. So much so that it beached itself so it can die on dry land. I feel like letting it bleed out and asphyxiate would be crueler than giving it the release it’s clearly after, so…    There are stories of powerful and resourceful seamen battling sharks and pulling their teeth to be made into necklaces to show just how much of a badass they are. These feels… wrong, though.  Looting the shark gets you what you’d expect, for the most part… with one exception.  Seems like this shark didn’t die on an empty stomach. Sebille! Eat this half-digested human(?) leg! : A boy at swim, your name is Joe, you’re nine, you’re brave, you’re off to see your mum. A shadow moves below you. A jagged vice closes on your thigh and pulls you down. Water fills your lungs. Blood billows.Huh, I got a handful of EXP for that, and it opened a new sidequest. I wonder what that’s about. Fun fact! Sharks rarely ever attack humans and would rather go after food that isn’t large enough to put up a fight, like smaller fish. Usually, when a shark attacks a human, they’re more interested in the movement the human is making in the water than they are in their fleshy blood meats. Given that Joe was nine years old, it’s possible that this shark mistook him for a seal or large otter. Or the writer just wanted to write a shark eating a human, which is more likely.  Rounding around the coast gets me lots of poison puddles and lots of fish piles – and it makes me very smelly – but it doesn’t net me anything as interesting as a dying shark with a piece of a boy inside it. Actually, while I’m here…  I summon Secretary on one of the poison puddles. While poison-type incarnates don’t have the DPS of blood-types, poison is the most consistent damage-over-time (or DOT) of all the statuses, and it can heal Fane by punching him in the head, which is fun.  Coming up to the west end of the beach… I find a dead body. What a coincidence, given that I just summoned Secretary. And I hear noises up ahead…  That is a huge Voidwoken praying mantis that’s attacking that poor Sourcerer. What did she do, she’s even wearing the drat collar! That’s supposed to stop those things from finding her, and now she can’t even defend herself!     : Combat Music 2 : The Grub Hub: Part 2Turn 1  : That Voidwoken had someone in its claws!Just as I approach the woman and the giant praying mantis to try and help out, it manages to snatch her up and fly away. So much for that. But it left a handful of its friends for me to entertain myself with instead. Six grub Voidwoken, just like that one seemingly-endless fight in the swamp: four regular grubs, and… two new ones. None of them have any armour.   Sebille opens the fight with a round of Chloroform on Viscous 1. She has two AP left, but she can’t really attack anything without getting wildly out of position, so she passes. The two red grubs are Volatile Voidlings. They’re weak to fire damage… which tells me, along with their name, that they’re probably going to explode eventually. Either when they die, or when they get too close. Viscous 1 spends its turn waking up.    The enemies are split into two groups of three, and they’re all clustered together, meaning they’re primed to be crown-controlled. Lohse makes it rain on the further group, then she hits them all with one Winter Blast, freezing all of their tiny bug-legs to the sand. And with her last AP, she hits the whole group with Encourage. Viscous 2’s turn is next, but it’s been snap frozen, and no enemy is in range, so it’s forced to pass.   Prince hits Fane with Think Fast, then he hurls a Fireball at the closer group of three, since the Volatile Voidlings are weak to fire.   Viscous 3 goes next – and it burrows into the ground to get around the fact that it can’t move from the ice. That’s some bullshit! It hits Sebille and Prince with Crippling Blow. Not a huge deal for Prince, but kinda a big deal for Sebille. Fane delays his turn to let the enemies come to him.   Viscous 4 walks straight through the fire to reach the group and it uses Crippling Blow on Sebille and Prince once again. Now that’s both of their knees blown out.    I don’t want either of the Volatile Voidlings to approach me if I can help it, so Secretary hits Volatile 1 with both of its long-ranged attacks. I was hoping Poison Dart would cause the fire to detonate and cause more damage, but I guess I’ll just have to make due with giving it the poisoned status instead.   Volatile 1 takes its time to walk around the fire puddle in order to walk up to Secretary and use Burning Touch, setting it on fire. Volatile 2 is frozen to the sand and doesn’t think to use Burrow to get closer, thankfully.   Finally, Fane takes his delayed turn and uses it to whack Viscous 3 twice, once with a regular attack and once with All In. It’s not likely to survive another turn of attacks that strong.  Turn 2 And it doesn’t: two more regular swings from Fane, and Viscous 3 dies. Executioner refunds him two more AP, but he’d still rather let the enemies get closer before he starts making moves, so he saves his three AP for next turn, which could give him all 8.     Viscous 1 walks through the fire to try and take the shortest route to the group – and it wades right through the nearby poison puddle to get to us, igniting it and doing more damage to itself than anything. And Secretary even gets in an AoO. But once it’s lined up, it hits Sebille and Prince with yet another Crippling Blow. They aren’t getting more Crippled with each hit, but they also don’t exactly tickle.    Sebille does the classic Ruptured Chicken combo on Viscous 4, who’s scheduled to go after Prince, before chucking a pair of knives at Viscous 1 from a distance.   Viscous 2 finally gets a turn, and it uses it to walk right up to Lohse and, you guessed it, use Crippling Blow on her. At least it wasn’t Sebille and Prince again. It also has enough AP to put in more normal hit.     Sebille and Prince have been Crippled several times over and they’re both down to a little less than half HP. Prince can heal himself with Rallying Cry, so Lohse uses Restoration on Sebille to give her a boost. She has three AP remaining, which is just enough to toss Volatile 1 back into the fire it walked through. The teleportation isn’t enough to kill it, but the fire is, and, like I guessed, it explodes, spreading the fire and Cursing it.    Prince puts down a blood totem, more to buff Rallying Cry than because I need the extra DPS. When he uses Rallying Cry on himself, it instantly puts him back to max HP. With his last AP, he uses Breath Fire on Viscous 1, which also detonates the poison behind it.  The blood totem opens fire on Viscous 1, killing it. Which it would have done if it didn’t miss.   Viscous 4 is ruptured and on fire, and it turns around and hauls rear end through the brush on the beach to try and get away from the fight. It runs so far and for so long that it kills itself from its movement, dealing over three quarters of its max HP to itself. Ruptured Chicken is a good-rear end strategy.  Secretary does what the totem couldn’t and punches Viscous 1, squishing it flat with its gigantic fist. It has two AP left, but it passes to save them. That just leaves Volatile 2 and Viscous 2.    Speaking of: Volatile 2 has a pretty strong, if self-destructive move. Unfortunately for me, my movements have been pretty clustered together, meaning I’m easy to CC if the enemy had the sense for it. Volatile 2 wanders right into the middle of my party and uses Supernova, which does a handful of damage to itself… but way more to my everyone in my party. Lohse is instantly put near death and Secretary is knocked down to half in a single move. But it doesn’t stop there: it attempts to reposition, probably to try and hit either Sebille or Secretary, but in doing so, it triggers Sebille’s AoO, and she manages to kill it – which causes it to detonate, adding even more fire in a big explosion around us. And on top of those, its death causes Necrofire, not just normal fire, so now everyone is on permanent, extra fire, and we’re all Decaying.      Turn 3 Fane has quite the productive turn, which is abnormal for him. He usually just whacks people twice and calls it a turn. Lohse is in critical condition, but he can’t heal her – at least, not exactly. What he can do is use Bless on Lohse, and since she’s standing in Necrofire, that also Blesses it, turning it back into normal fire and removing the Curses. Everyone but Lohse is still Decaying, though, since they themselves were not Blessed. Next, he uses Living on the Edge on Lohse, which will prevent her HP from dropping below 1 for the next turn. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’ll buy me a turn if I need it. Then Fane uses Mosquito Swarm on Viscous 2, the final enemy in the fight, and finally, he uses Phoenix Dive to jump next to it, making it Taunted so that it couldn’t hit anyone else even if it wanted to. And the ring of fire that Phoenix Dive put down managed to crit, too – I didn’t know it could do that.  Perhaps realizing that the fight is lost, Viscous 2 hits Fane once and then passes.    Sebille also uses Bless on herself, removing her Decaying and turning the fire into Holy Fire, which grants a whole whack of fire resistance and it heals anyone that walks through it. And it also looks rad. This will keep anyone from dying once the fight ends and the group tries to reconvene by walking in straight lines through hazardous surfaces. Finally, she ends the fight by walking up to Viscous 2 and slashing it across its gross slug-body, taking it out for good.  Unfortunately, Bless doesn’t last as long as Curse, and neither last as long as a fire’s ‘natural lifespan,’ but the blessing lasts just long enough for me to use a bedroll and restore everyone to max HP.  The bugs all carry some crafting materials – nothing too exciting – but I figured I might as well take the time to point out one new option that I have now: I mentioned a few updates ago that there was a chest on the Lady Vengeance that had nothing in it, but ‘would be useful later,’ or something to that effect. Now that the Lady Vengeance has been liberated and I her captain, I can now send any item in my inventory straight into that chest for long-term storage, if I want. Every avatar character gets one chest on the ship, and other avatar characters can’t loot another player’s chest. That can be really useful if you play with some jackanape that’s roleplaying as a rogue scoundrel that likes to pickpocket other players in the game, or you play as maybe-well-meaning friends that utilizes Magic Pockets a bit too often and keeps looting your stuff in the inventory screen (which you can do: if your inventory is unlocked, another player can literally click and drag any item from your inventory into theirs and vice versa, no matter the distance between your characters). It’s a minor thing that’s unlikely to come up too often, but this is an LP of a game that I love, and I must explain the mechanics!  Traveling further north, I eventually reach the inland border of the beach and I find a proper brick road. The eastern road travels uphill, while the western road… looks like it’s seen some poo poo very recently.  : A Magister caravan! I remember one just like this picking me up.There’s, ah, quite a lot to digest here on the western road. So I’m going to head east instead.  Fly Agaric mushrooms – also known as Fly Amanita, or their scientific name, Amanita muscaria – are perhaps the most iconic form of mushroom in popular culture. They’re very likely what the Super Mushrooms from Super Mario are based on. Although poisonous, eating them is unlikely to cause death, and they can be safely consumed by boiling them twice. They’re also popular to use as a psychoactive drug. Eating them in this game gives you character the Poisoned status for three turns. So, there: now you have some information on sharks and on mushrooms.  The road takes me to a raised drawbridge, with a bald child standing on this side of the gap. When I approach, there’s a load, monstrous roar, and the screen starts to shake. : That doesn’t sound promising, does it? : Makes my bones itch…: The little boy lobs a stone across the river. It makes a long arc before plunging into the water below. : A screech like metal dragging on stone grinds from across the river. : You have to help her. Please! : I may be able to help your mother, tiny mortal, but I’ll need more information on what’s happened here.: There was a… a fight. Some dwarves attacked some Magisters, and there were Sourcerers, too. And then the bugs came. Those Void things. : She had it right when she told you to run. She did everything in her power to protect you and you staying here is flying in the face of that sacrifice. : I saw the carnage those Voidwoken had caused down the road. You’ll be another casualty if you stay, which is what your mother fought to prevent.: If those things get to Ma, they can get to me too. : I’ll do what I can, if it’s not too late.: It isn’t. Ma’s in our house across the river. The bugs haven’t gotten in yet. I know she’s inside! : (The river is calm, although it may be too deep to swim. Perhaps there’s another method….) I’ll do my best to help her.: There’s got to be a way! We’ll save Ma. I know we will.: His gaze shoots to the ground. He grabs a small, flat pebble and chucks it across the river. Again, it lands in the water below well before reaching the other side of the cliffs. : You really need to exhibit some sense and get into the town, child. It’s much safer there. I’ll send your mother as soon as I can ensure her safety.: No way. Ma didn’t leave me; I’m not leaving her.: He performs a Divine Order salute.: Now go help Ma!Oh. This kid’s mother is a Magister. On the one hand, getting eaten by a Voidwoken is no way to go for anyone. We just watched some woman get captured and lifted off by a gigantic mantis. On the other, less Magisters in the world is generally something I’m not against. And while the Order is nefarious and evil, the individuals within it are typically just scared men and women that are trying to do what’s best for the world – most of them have no idea what really goes on in Fort Joy. We could just leave Ma to die, but… well, this is more a question of when we want to help her, not if.  Heading along the east road, we come back to this lovely sight. Body parts strewn about; at least one dead animal, just sitting there decomposing on the side of the road; everything’s covered in blood…. We’ll start with that severed head closest to me. Sebille! Open up! : You twist your head around as the Magisters haul you away. Your wife and two boys stand in the doorway, helpless. You commit their faces to memory one last time…: Wendy cries out something to you. You tell yourself it was ‘I love you’, or ‘We’ll wait for you’… but the truth is, you didn’t catch it. The farm recedes from view behind you. : From the dark, you stare up at the thin slivers of light visible between the floorboards. Shadows ripple across the slivers, accompanied by heavy footsteps… Magister footsteps…: … wood creaks above your head – one of them has paused. Your breath catches in your throat as you wait for him to move along… but the hatch is suddenly yanked open. Light floods you, blinding and accusatory…: You hear only one gruffly-barked word before the hands seize you – ‘Gotcha’.Sebille learned Favourable Wind from that. That’s, uh, a weird choice, given the story.  : You remember a cold childhood in a no-hope fishing town, bullied mercilessly by a dwarf named Lohar. With no other prospects, you sign up as a Magister, eager for the power denied you all your life. : Work, work, work. That’s all there was in Driftwood for a dwarf like you. Until you got involved in the anti-Magister resistance. Then, the work was still there, but also purpose. Purpose worth dying for. Still a lot to sift through… They’re all dead, so I can loot all their bodies. It’s not like any of them are going to use it. The closest dead Magister had some money, a potion of Vitality, and…  Luckily for me, a pair of pants is not a part of the Captain’s set on Sebille, so she can wear these epic pants without breaking the set.  As I understand the story so far: there was a Magister caravan hauling off some freshly-collared Sourcerers, probably heading down this road towards the drawbridge that Barin’s mom had crossed. A dwarven anti-Magister resistance crew intercepted the caravan… but someone used Source magic, and suddenly, the place was crawling with Voidwoken, possibly including one or more of those giant mantises. None of them were a match for the swarm. However, this one dwarven warmaiden managed to survive the encounter. She’s shivering like she’s cold and she keeps chanting ‘no’ and ‘it can’t be real’ to herself. : White as Driftwood salt, the dwarf flinches at your approach yet she holds a short, clean blade aloft. Her fierce stance can’t hide the trembling of her fingers. : (The trembling; the uneven speech; the suddenness in her reflexes… I’ve read of this condition before.): You’re in shock, madam. You’re not in danger. You need to focus on your breathing.: She slumps, all bravado draining from her. : Beasts? You must be referring to Voidwoken. : Sourcerers? I don’t see any Sourcerer bodies or any of those collars nearby. Can you tell me what happened to them all?: Her eyes stare vacantly into the distance, glassy as marbles. It’s not cold, yet her shivering is relentless. : On what possible business could a man want with a Magister caravan? : It was your mission to rescue them, then? Then you must be able to remember something? : Listen to me. Stop shouting. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.: If you can tell me anything – anything at all about what had happened to them – I can take it from here. You can go back home, where it’s safe.: Persuasion Success! : I… I… oh Seven’s sympathy, I saw those things dragging the Sourcerers along the cliffs… towards the wreckers’ caves. I… I… no, no more! It’s gone!: She flinches at the slightest rustle of wind through the long grass. Terror in her eyes, she stumbles away from you.We may not have been able to get much, but we do know now that the Voidwoken aren’t killing or eating the Sourcerers: they’re abducting them and taking them somewhere ‘along the cliffs, towards the wreckers’ caves.’ That last praying mantis Voidwoken that we saw before fighting the volatile grubs didn’t eat its victim either: it picked her up and started flying west. So, that’s a new thing to look into, then. Maybe all of those Sourcerers can be saved. But it also begs the question why these Voidwoken in particular would want live Sourcerers, even if their collars stayed on.  Once I’m done talking with the Warmaiden, she stumbles away from me – by sprinting full-loving-tilt down the stream and disappearing into the nearby river. I’ll… assume that wasn’t supposed to happen. Anyway, there’s more body parts to be eaten.  : Collared by Magisters in the far north, you were force-marched to this foreign land. A moment of hope as a grinning dwarf removes your Source collar. Seconds later, Voidwoken death. : You stride past the chained Sourcerers and climb onto the caravan without complaint. As you settle onto the bench, you offer Rhalic’s blessings to the Magister guard. He offers only a bleary-eyed stare of disinterest in return, before shoving the chained Sourcerers aboard. As you watch them cower, you cannot help but feel annoyance…: … after all, don’t they know they’re going to be saved? : Eloisa was the prettiest girl. Not to others, but to you. Her luminous eyes shone brighter than the moon. The day you collared her for Fort Joy you wept every tear you had. You never cried again. : Warm red wine flows down your throat. The languor of a tavern evening soothes you. Suddenly, shrieks rent the night; the Magisters have come. Warm red blood flows down your face… The bodies all don’t have anything especially useful on them, aside from money, and the crates are all pretty much the same.   Among the wrecked caravan is this locked chest, but the key to it was sitting on the road among all the dead bodies. A fistful of cash; a Knockdown arrow; and…  Hell’s bells, this is one hell of an axe. It outclasses Fane’s Final Word by a country mile. This… well, obviously, it’s a good thing, and I’m going to equip it, but it’s going to make finding a new item later all the harder. You want to try and incrementally work your way towards a weapon with these kinds of numbers over the course of the game – this weapon has drat-near endgame bonuses with it. If it also had a slot for a rune, it’d essentially be perfect. It’s going to be hard letting this one go. Or saving up the cash to get one of the mage sister’s equipment-boosting items.   Heading down the road to the north, I come across a small fork: to my right leads to a chicken coop, which is a weird place for that. There’s no farm or ranch or anything nearby – there’s barely even a fence. It’s just a coop of chickens, just built next to the road. The only defence it’d have from foxes would be the river flowing to its east. Straight ahead, standing next to an outhouse – also a weird place for something like that, but, I suppose, someone must be tended to the coop – is a small child.   : What’s a child doing outside of the city limits? : Ain’t up to owt. Jes’ lookin’ for someone. : … I’m afraid that Ifan ben-Mezd has passed away.: Oooooooo Baran won’t like that.: Won’t like that one little bit.: The kid shoves his hands in his pockets and ambles off, resuming his tuneless whistling.Well, that’s ominous. Or a missed opportunity. Or maybe it was nothing! He’s standing next to an outhouse. Can I use it?  Makes sense. I’m a skeleman, after all.  The chicken coop has… five chickens total, it looks like. Not a whole lot. But they also have lots and lots of places to roam, especially considering that the coop’s borders are, well, they’re more of a suggestion, from the looks of things. As I have the Pet Pal Talent, I can, of course, converse with each of them. Maybe one of them is some poor bastard that got Chicken Claw’d and never managed to revert.  : Yes. Yes, you look just the type. Egg thief. I knew it. : I just walked in. You saw me just walk in. I couldn’t possibly have stolen anything.: Tell that to Big Marge! If you dare! : Eggy eggy gone gone, baby eggy gone for GOOD! : (Making myself available to farm animals is perhaps beneath me, but… it’s difficult to see an animal in distress like this.) What do you need help with?: Marge! Marge knows! Marge saw! Ask Marge!: Bock! : (That’s… unusual. Perhaps it’s a form of regional dialect, or an accent.) Bock!: Bock!: (Alright, maybe not.): Cluck cluck! Did you hear? The eggs are gone! Gone for good! : Do you know what happened to your eggs?: Not my eggs, our eggs! All the family, all the eggs, every last one! Big Marge saw. Big Marge will tell you everything! This one must be Big Marge. Considering every last egg in the coop’s been stolen, she seems pretty collected about it.  : I… I saw. I saw, I saw. I saw – BACAW! – I saw… : I’ll need more details, Big Marge. : Did you get a good enough look at the thief to tell me what they looked like? : (A Voidwoken? What would a Voidwoken, especially one of that size, want with chicken eggs? I can understand the value in a Sourcerer, but….): Which direction did it run off to?: If, if, if I showed you… you could bring them back – BACAW! You could, you, you could bring them back… : BACAW!: In a flurry of feathers, she leaps up and pecks a small hole in your map.: That’s where they are. I went after my babies, I saw where they went. But they’ve changed so much, so much much much – BACAW! – much. Bring them back! BACAW!drat, that chicken is smart as hell, if she not only knows what a map is but can even read one. This is one more sidequest to add onto our very-quickly-growing list: a Voidwoken had broken into this chicken coop and stole all of the chicken’s eggs before flying off. Luckily, according to Marge, it didn’t get very far at all: it only managed to go maybe one hundred paces to the north, stopping at a sandy beach along the river. It’s a quick jaunt from the coop to where that Voidwoken landed. I won’t be doing it this update, but when I move on, it’d be a very short detour.  A little further ways up the road is one more fork: this time, one path heading north, and the other heading west… and it looks like there’s a Magister checkpoint sitting at the front of a long bridge. From the looks of things, this might be the fishing village I’ve been told about. Driftwood.   : Hell no. You know what Reimond would do if he caught us? : Yeah. Yeah, guess you’re right.: ‘course I’m right. Stick with me, kid. I won’t steer you wrong.: Get yourself in check, boy. I won’t have you running off like Millsent and Tolly. You’ll just end up sliding down some Voidwoken’s gross gullet, piece by piece.: The older-looking Magister notices your presence. He wipes his grubby hands downward across his greaves as if to wipe away the grime, but instead smears more dirt onto them. : Nothing good, I’m afraid. There’s a wrecked Magister caravan just a few minutes’ walk down the road from here, with dead Magisters and dwarves strewn about.: His face goes pale and his eyes open wide. The Magister that greeted you remains stiff, as if enduring a harsh wind.: The Voidwoken come…: Hush, Fedor. You may pass, traveller. Dare say you’ll be aching to leave before long, anyway. But… before you do, find Reimond, the White Magister. He’ll want to know what you’ve seen.: Be quick, mind. He’s set to sail any moment.: He nods his head in the direction of the bridge, but offers no other instructions. Just beyond the checkpoint is a familiar sight: a pair of Silent Monks. One fighter, and one archer. Not exactly the strongest defence against a Voidwoken attack, but, on the other hand, I am only a party of four myself; who am I to say?  And just beyond the bridge: Driftwood. The rain stops as soon as I cross. There’s going to be quite a lot to do here in Driftwood! It’s the main hub for this act, sort of like how the Fort Joy ghetto was, and then Amadia’s Sanctuary, in Act One. This is as good a time as any to call it for this update, since the next one is going to be filled to the brim with exploring our new temporary home. To recap, there are no votes this time, but we came across more than a handful of new quests that we’ll be resolving soon: the boy Joe that the shark ate; the bald boy trying to cross the river to rescue his mom; the failed dwarven rescue on the Magister caravan; the Voidwoken kidnapping Sourcerers and flying them westward; another Voidwoken stealing the chicken’s eggs and only making it a stone’s throw northward; and, most importantly, meeting Meistr Siva. There’s lots to do, and we’ll… well, we’ll see how many of them we resolve next time! Oh, wait. I forgot something.  Much better. Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 11:24 on Dec 21, 2021 |
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Nov 9, 2021 08:19
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This update does a great job introducing you to how loving terrifying voidwoken are. Fort Joy had very little voidwoken, but still little pockets of them here and there, which makes sense for an abandoned island that has been locked down by source collars. Outside the island though? Just a few minutes outside of town you've got voidwoken preying on caravans. The guards are talking about people going missing or running off. You've got a fully armed caravan torn to shreds. loving shark beaching itself. Hell, even the idiot chickens are near senseless. Just a great opening 15 minutes.
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Nov 9, 2021 16:40
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The only sensible thing to do is to lock up all the sourcerers. We should march ourselves back to Fort Joy. And why wouldn't a Voidwoken take chicken eggs? They're more delicious than raw humans.
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Nov 10, 2021 01:30
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How would you know that Schwartzcough
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Nov 10, 2021 01:37
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I just know things alright
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Nov 10, 2021 02:05
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Schwartzcough posted:And why wouldn't a Voidwoken take chicken eggs? They're more delicious than raw humans. Incorrect, as Sebille can second 
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Nov 10, 2021 02:49
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Slaan posted:Incorrect, as Sebille can second Which by the way did the void tainted body parts harm Sebille? I never ate those because it just seemed like a real bad idea. Like if Sebille starts convulsing you better have a mallet hovering over her chest for the voidling whackamole that is about to happen.
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Nov 10, 2021 16:30
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I was concerned about that too, but no: she ate them just fine and they even healed her as normal. I imagine it's just for the environmental storytelling.
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Nov 10, 2021 16:59
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 : DriftwoodWe’re here in Driftwood. Like I said before, this will be our main central hub for Act Two, like how the Fort Joy ghetto and Amadia’s Sanctuary were for Act One. This is where most of the main central plot takes place, and this is where we’ll be doing most of our purchasing, although, ideally, not much of our selling. And I’m just going to walk right on in with my Incarnate Champion green with swirling poison, and nobody’s going to bat an eye. Driftwood is a pretty big place: this entire update is going to familiarize us with its layout and some of the key players and locations in it. I won’t be transcribing every single person and animal I speak with unless they say something important, mostly to preserve my own sanity since there’s a ton of nothings-going-on in between the plot relevant and interesting stuff. All you really need to know about the busybodies of Driftwood is that the place smells worse than a dozen rotten eggs dropped in a vat of vinegar, and that Bree is holding it together, as long as she doesn’t think about it too much.  To start, as soon as we enter, there’s a caravan tent to our right with a stable of bulls just beyond it, and to our left… is a somewhat familiar face.  : The woman in front of you yawns so wide you can almost see what she had for lunch. Catching your eye across her wares, she rolls both of her own. : Oh. A customer.: Welcome to Four Sisters, creators of all-singing, all-dancing, world-famous Sourcerour Sundries.  : Your outfit is particularly well polished. It’s very pleasant to the eye.: She sighs deeply, as irritated as if you just threw a spider into her ale.: Well, I do sell Sourcerous Sundries, don’t I? It’d be a bit hypocritical of me not to use my own products.: You know, if you want to add some razzle dazzle to your own gear…: She looks you up and down. Slowly. It is clear that you are found wanting. : I tried opening with a compliment. Your attitude is rather unbecoming of a merchant looking to sell goods.: Yeah? : Deidara did. It’s hard to believe you two are sisters.: And praise Lucian for that.: Her face clouds over for a moment.: Though I do hope she’s alright. I know the Seekers didn’t fare so well, but my sisters always had a way of getting out of scrapes.: She shakes her head, and the concerned look vanishes, replaced with a hard stare. : She was rather eager to give me a substantial discount.: She narrows her eyes right back at you. And folds her arms to boot. : She mentioned that you sisters enjoy giving your customers riddles, and that if the customer guessed correctly, you would give them their discount.: Ah. Our weak spot. Well, I suppose I can play along. : (A riddle for a discount seems like poor business sense to me, but I’m not about to object.) You have a deal.: You should know I already regret this.: So. See me run, I never walk. I have a mouth, I never talk. I have a bed, I never sleep. I can be shallow, I can be deep. Well, thread, you have your riddle, and you have the answers available to us. What do YOU think is the answer to Demira’s riddle?  The walls overlooking the eastern bridge in and out of town can be scaled – on top of making environmental sense, it’s also good prep in the event that you pick a fight with someone nearby. The whole game is riddled with high grounds and ways to access them, even if you can’t imagine yourself picking a fight at their location. There was a high ground access at the chicken coop!   Our exploration is rewarded with essentially a pile of money. Always nice to have, especially since we’re in a new area, and new areas are going to have new wares to buy.  In the nearby stable are two bulls. The one on the left doesn’t have anything terribly interesting to say, but the one on the right…  : Finally, it’s good to be recognized for my exceptional qualities! For a farm animal, you have more sense about you than many of the mortals in the realm. : Plain as day! Don’t take hawk eyes to see you’re as queer as a pear-shaped apple! Just look at you! Struttin’ about like a peacock, but them feathers ain’t yours. That face you’re wearin’ – it don’t sit right. : … If you knew that I’m an undead, then why would you assume I’d want to visit the city tavern?: ‘cause that’s where all the queer ones go. Clankin’ dwarves, dozy lizards – I even saw ‘em drag a Voidwoken down there in the dead o’ night! Don’t know what’s going on in that tavern, but it must be a freak show in there!Interesting. There’s a Voidwoken in the tavern. Given that the town guard at the bridge were contemplating deserting at the sight of them, it’s probably a closely-guarded secret, but that could still mean any number of things. What are they doing with it? Are they in control of it, or is it in control of them? Is it still alive? Something to think about once we make it there.  Heading down the road west, we’re brought into the town square. There’s a statue of an angel marking the center of the city, and it’ll function as a waypoint for us to travel to. This town square has everything a person could want in a square: a handful of shops; some nosey civilians looking to spread gossip; a beggar and his dog to make himself look more sympathetic; and guards constantly patrolling every last inch of the place, both Magister and Silent Monk alike. There’s even a town crier in the corner hollering off all the latest news fit to hear.  We’ll check in with the beggar first. Sometimes, life deals a guy a bum hand, and he has a dog to look after, too.  : Penny for a sick dog? : Do you know what’s wrong with your dog? : Is it safe to pet? : (I may have a soft spot for distressed animals.) Very well. I could part with a coin for a sick dog. Provided you use it for the dog.: Thankee kindly. Any chance of another one? Penny for a sick dog and all that? : (Well… I suppose it’s unreasonable to assume that just one coin would be enough to help a sick dog.): Much obliged. Could I push you for one more? Penny for a sick dog, et cetera? : I think that’s enough. I have my own coffers to worry about in the long run. That said, though: I believe I was promised that I could pet the dog if I gave the man a coin. Two coins equals two pets, right? : The dog lies there quietly, clearly in great pain.  : What’s wrong with you, boy? You can tell me. I may be able to help.   : (… And this beggar is this dog’s owner….) I can heal you, boy, but I need you to trust me. This will only take a moment. : The dog goes to bite your hand… and then realises the pain is gone. : (With any luck, this beggar adopted the dog after someone else put the collar on him, and he’s merely negligent.) Who put this collar on you? : (Of course.) Do you know what that means? : Huh? Uh… wait a minute. Master hurted me?! Excuse me a minute, I’m going to go now, but first I have a thing I need to do…: He turns to his master…: YOU BAD MAN YOU! BARK! And off he runs, heading down the road towards the city gate. I got 5,000 EXP for helping this dog be freed from his cruel beggar master. It’s more than enough to level up… Sebille only. I have no idea where she got all that extra experience. Even if I could do that trick where I dismiss people and re-enlist them, I’m not positive it’ll have any effect, but I’ll give it a try next update anyway. And I’ll save allocating her level-ups until everyone else catches up with her. Fun fact! You know the stereotype about ‘tough’ dogs wearing collars with spikes coming out of them? That’s an ancient Greek invention: they’re given to shepherd dogs and livestock guard dogs to protect them from wolf attacks, since they would normally go for the neck first. They’re still used in the real world, particularly in central Europe. Imagine wearing a collar meant to deter wolf attacks inside-out and just dealing with that for who knows how long. Let’s have another word with the beggar.  : You’re not worth the rags you’re wearing on your legs. You’re sick as could be. : The people of Driftwood live in constant fear of bug-like Voidwoken surrounding them. The last thing they need is a leech. A cruel one, at that. They deserve to know what they’re putting up with. : … Give me half. The dog’s half.: He gives you a cool look, then rummages in his pocket. He counts the money out, and hands it over. (20): That’s your lot. Go on then. Get lost, ya freeloader. I’m workin’ here.That’s the attitude of a man that stared at an undead necromancer battlemage, wearing the armour of a crazed Sourcerer king, wielding an enchanted battleaxe, and not learning to appreciate what he’s been given permission to keep. If I speak to him again, he just begs for more money.  Let’s take a look at our shop options. This guy, to the square’s north, sells weapons, armour, and Warfare and Huntsman skillbooks. Realistically, this is probably going to be the guy I’m going to deal with the most, and it’d make some sense to turn him into a fence along with Tarquin. However, I simply don’t have the money or the wares to do that right now, so I’m just browsing. Which is a shame – he’s got a lot of really good stuff in there, including a Legendary staff that would go great on Prince.  Next to the arms dealer is a dwarf selling food. Specifically, fish. And given that a shark recently beached itself specifically to escape the stuff dwelling in the ocean, I… probably don’t want to eat any of the fish, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone else do so either.  This dwarven trader to the square’s south sells exclusively magic stuff: primarily Aerothurge, Geomancer, Pyromancer, and Polymorph skillbooks, but also a few different scrolls and at least one Unique wand that would go really well on Lohse. This being a new Act, there’s a whole library of new skills and techniques available to me that I really want to get a hold of, even if I don’t have the Memory for some of the better stuff just yet. But I simply don’t have the cash for anything – I need to collect some more wares and then find where Tarquin wandered off to when we landed on the shore. Well… I can’t afford any skillbooks, except one.  Neither Lohse nor Prince know of any self-teleporting skills. And with Nether Swap, that’s technically still true, since it’s not strictly a self-teleporting skill, but that distinction may actually work in my favour, since it avoids the penalties that Divinity: Unleashed gives teleporting skills. With my points in Bartering, it costs 1,163 gold to purchase – and it turns out that I have precisely 1,163 gold to spend.   Nether Swap: Make any two characters swap places. One of them can be yourself.Nether Swap only costs 1 AP to use, meaning Lohse could Teleport an enemy into an advantageous position, and then still have enough AP left over to use Nether Swap and give that position to herself. There’s a lot of synergy to be had with this skill!  And finally, at least in the town square, is Bree. She deals with Necromancy, Hydrosophist (which seems oxymoronic to me), and Summoning. She also has a bunch of potions, crafting ingredients, and other miscellaneous knick-knacks, including lockpicks and trap disarm kits. The Necromancy skills are nothing new, since Tarquin deals with them as well, but there’s a handful of skills in the other two schools that I’d really like to get my hands on. There’s one in particular in Summoning that I’d like to get, and soon…  Before I leave the town square, I might as well have a talk with the crier. See what’s fit to hear around the world lately.  : It would do to stay abreast of the goings-on in the world around me. What’s the latest? : We might as well go in order! : Ain’t looking too good for them lizards! Word is the Divine Order’s gonna hit the Ancient Empire and hit it hard! : (The Divine Order is going to deploy Deathfog a second time…?): Erm… tell me more about the happenings regarding Bishop Alexander.: Seven save us! Stabbed in the back he was, by those vile, lowborn, treacherous Seekers! Kill ‘em all I say! Do ‘em like Magister Reimond did old lady Siva! That’ll teach them traitors! : (Siva’s been ‘done,’ he says, by a Magister. This must have been very recent. I wonder if she’s not dead…): Let’s cap this off with news about this ‘queen’ that you mentioned.: Jolly Justinia! Queen of the dwarves! Ha! Scourge, more like! Here’s twenty or so noble gentlemen. No-one knows what they did wrong – if anything! And she has ‘em stripped and whipped all the way to the execution grounds. Didn’t even give ‘em the dignity of the sword, no sir! Had ‘em all hung. Reeeal slow like.: You ask me and I say she’s mad as a mink with its tail on fire, queen or no queen!Hmm, I wonder how long this had been going on. Long enough for Beast to abdicate his position and become a fairly renowned privateer. According to him, Justinia wasn’t always like this – but she wasn’t always a queen, either, and she started going batty shortly after ascending to the throne.  South of the town square are these two kids standing on a wharf, overlooking the ocean. It’s a pretty bad spot for ship mooring – the water is too shallow and the pier is too close to a building to properly set up anything larger than a skiff.  : ‘ullo mister.: The little boy looks at you. He picks his nose. : You be careful, my daddy’s a Magister. : (It hasn’t been so long that I’ve forgotten that children enjoy one-upmanship.) Well, my daddy is a god.: … I’m pretty sure, anyway.: They stare at you in disbelief. Then they start laughing. : There’s a whole lot of nothing on the ocean’s surface. Do you kids expect to find anything? Or are you just gazing?: We’re waitin’ for our friend. He went for a swim. He’ll be back soon.: He went swimmin’. All the way to Fort Happy.: Fort Joy. : That’s… an awfully long distance, from here to Fort Joy. Your friend must be strong and brave as an ox.: That’s right!: I think he’s an idiot, and when he gets back I’m going to tell him so.: … So… was – would your friend’s name happen to be Joe…?: Coo! How did you know that?!: Mister, have you seen our friend Joe?If you’ll remember from one update ago… Joe was eaten by the shark that had beached itself. We found his leg in its stomach. : Tell them the truth about Joe. They have to grow up some time.: The truth hurts, but they’ll get over it.: Kids are resilient. Tell them the truth. We’re given a choice in how to proceed, and everyone else in my party is in agreement that the kids need to learn that the world is harsh and that Joe made a mistake. However, this will probably be their first brush with the adult reality of the world, and there’s no going back from losing your innocence. What do YOU think? Do we tell the kids about Joe? Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Nov 27, 2021 |
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Nov 21, 2021 14:53
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 Following along the pier, we come to a cabana, and just down a flight of steps heading south is a more ‘proper’ dock, able to hold larger schooners.  And inside the cabana is a fisherman… and he looks like he’s having some trouble with his latest catch. He caught an entire other shark, but everything is leaking poison, which means they’re probably all Void-tainted. On the table beside him is a piece of paper that’s labelled as a ‘cautionary pamphlet.’ I should probably give that a read.  It seems pretty foolhardy that a fishing town on the coast doesn’t have a lighthouse, but apparently, that’s a thing. Someone’s been spreading rumours that it does, however, causing ships to follow its light, only to run aground and be easy pickings for dwarven pirates. At least, according to this. The fisherman looking over his catch has nothing interesting to say and no wares to sell… but:  He’s carrying a metric shitload of money. And it just so happens that I’m a little short on cash, myself.   With Sebille’s current stats, she can lift 800 gold from him. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s better than nothing. By the way, you might be wondering why I didn’t just pickpocket every vendor in the town square. Two reasons: the first is that everyone that’s worth pickpocketing is behind a shop stall, and it’d be difficult to get in and out from behind a guy without getting spotted, and the second is that everyone has eyes on everyone and it’d be tough as hell to sneak anyway. It may be possible with some judicious use of Cloak And Dagger, which makes Sebille invisible and therefore able to sneak regardless of vision cones, but the timing would be extremely tight. Maybe I’ll give it a shot next update.  South of the cabana is… two Silent Monks, each of them loading up a schooner with provisions, and two Magisters. One of them is doing the manual labour as well, while the second is dressed in white and is barking orders. When I entered the town, one of the guards at the gate told me to find Reimond, the White Magister. And the town crier told me that Meistr Siva was ‘done’ by Reimond as well. This must be our guy.  : Go on, you mute sacks of flesh, put your backs into it! I’ll not lose another day to the tide! The Lord Dread awaits! Its sails billow with Dallis’ breath! I’ll… : (Hmm… I gather that meekness would be exactly what he wants to prey upon, so I shouldn’t back down, but he also wouldn’t appreciate a challenge, either. I should play it neutrally.) It’s a good day we’re having today, isn’t it?: You do not get to make that decision. That decision is mine! A good day? Let’s talk about a good day. : *Sigh.* I would have thought that you mor – that us humans would have moved on from such barbary by now, especially now that there are more pressing matters than us torturing each other.: We do cruel things – unto others and unto ourselves – because we must.: He licks his lips. Dry flesh turns wet. : (Now’s the time to push back. Just a little.) Alright, that’s enough of this lunacy. What game are you playing?: My favourite one.: I’m very good at what I do, see. I don’t even need a Source Hound yapping at my side. There was a whiff of something in the air when you approached. A current of filth, that is to say: Source. : (… I don’t like playing any games with the Magisters, but I’m also in the very heart of a Magister operation. We could handle this buffoon and his three subordinates, but I don’t think we could handle the entire village of Driftwood afterword. And learning more about Meistr Siva is a priority.): (Reimond is very intense and he’s acting like he’s about to try and bite my neck clean in two. Perhaps now is the time to fight back.): You’re a brave man to insinuate that the best Source Hunter west of Arx is the very thing he’s been trained to kill.: Persuasion Success!: He leans in closer, and sniffs the air once more.: Interesting. So I was mistaken. Must have been ambition I smelled on you, not the magic that dare not speak its name…: Very well! In that case we’ll forego the gallows and turn straight to the hunt: the very definition of you order’s existence.: Seems peaceful here, doesn’t it? A quiet day in a quiet town. One wouldn’t think these drifting woods toss on dwarf-troubled waters. : I’d have thought that a Magister of your position and stature would be able to handle some dwarves.: I’m quite capable. But as you can see I’m also preparing to set sail. And who will deal with them when I’m gone? Consider for a moment the dwarf. What is he? A mule; a beast of burden. But some defy that role. There are rats among them, dancing to their rat queen’s tune. : If I’m to find these dwarves, I’ll need more concrete information. Enough with the flowery similes.: Of course. I must depart post-haste, but Julian here will stay behind and be a good little parrot. Ask, and he will answer. : Stay behind? But, but, but, I’ve my orders, same as you! Dallis… : Like I said: Julian is staying. : (… I may regret this.) I’ll look into this dwarf issue.: There’s a moment of fleeting suspicion as his glove closes around the bones of your hand, but only a moment. He grins darkly.: How very heart-warming.: One last thing: the Magisters here are diligent men and women. A stranger like you may run into… troubles with them. Should this happen, just wave this piece of parchment in their eager little faces. My signature will placate them without fail, I assure you.: Adieu and good luck. The Lord Dread awaits – the use of the gallows I pass on to you.  So we didn’t learn anything about what he did with Meistr Siva, and we haven’t really learned anything new vis-à-vis the dwarven issues in Driftwood, but we did manage to convince the highest-ranking Magister in Driftwood that we’re Source Hunters, and now we have his missive that gives us the same authority he has with any Magister business in the town. It’s not something I can abuse – I can’t go around telling Magisters to stop mistreating Sourcerers because they’ll figure me out in a hurry. But I can use this to learn everything they know about whatever I need, including where Siva is. And maybe I don’t even need that much. Reimond is a huge fan of torture and using gallows. If Siva is still alive, odds are good that she’s ‘dangling over a puddle of her own blood and piss.’ I just need to find where the Magisters keep the gallows. I can’t imagine a fishing village would have one already set up somewhere, so it’d either be outside of the village borders, or it’d be underground somewhere.  If there’s more information to be had, I’ll find it by speaking with Julian, the guy that Reimond just left behind. : The Magister is rubbing the dirt off his robes, none the worse for wear, apparently, from the blast of magic that knocked him off his feet. : Your superior has told me to report to you for a debriefing on the dwarf issue.: Yes, I am very much aware! Wasn’t my damned head that hit the floor back there. : … I found something that matches that description, yes. : I saw corpses. One bull and I don’t know how many human, elf, and dwarf bodies. They were all torn apart, limb from limb, and strewn about the road without a care. The wagon itself had been turned over and destroyed. The carnage was almost desperate… or, more accurately, bestial.: Voidwoken. That means Source was used… Which means some third party must have attacked first, and I’ve a fair idea who that might have been.: Reimond, that old goat, always suspected there’s more to Driftwood dwarves than meets the eye. Hate to admit it, but I think he may be right. Too many things have gone wrong along Reaper’s Coast to attribute to bad luck: Magister ships sinking; weapons disappearing; and as you’ve seen: a caravan attacked and destroyed. : If I’m to do that, I need a place to start.: There’s a local thug, Lohar. He runs an operation out of his hideout beneath the Black Bull tavern. I suspect this man of being a spy for his queen.: It may be interesting to have a word with him, find out what he’s up to, but where I really want you to ferret around is Reaper’s Bluffs, to the west of Driftwood. It’s wild territory, remote and hostile, where I believe the dwarves may have set up a base of operations away from prying eyes. : One last question: what makes Reimond suspect the dwarves? There are any number of reasons to explain away ‘sinking ships’ and ‘disappearing weapons.’: They’ve always been snakes in the grass. Cheap labour, sure. And hard workers, too. Half of them are their queen’s spies: her eyes, her ears, her poison-pouring hands. You know what Queen Justinia is like, surely! A tyrant – and a master strategist to boot.Okay, so we’ve learned a few things from this report: first, Lohar, a name that’s come up a few times now, has set up a base of operations underneath the Black Bull tavern, which, you’ll remember, is currently house to a Voidwoken (although we don’t know if it’s dead or alive, to be fair). Second, Julian believes that the dwarves are doing something west of Driftwood – but in the previous update, we saw a Voidwoken abduct a Sourcerer and then fly off in that direction, implying that the truth is something much more sinister. And third, well, he’s probably just being racist towards the dwarves, but according to him, none of them can be trusted: Queen Justinia has eyes and ears everywhere in the village. Why here? What’s so important about Driftwood, a simple fishing village? Beast believed that Justinia had gone off the deep end, too, and that she was planning something huge. Maybe there’s a nugget of truth to the idea that she’s got her hands wrapped around Driftwood somehow. Anyway. I got 4,000 EXP for talking to Julian, so this was a good detour. Although I still haven’t learned anything about Meistr Siva.   Julian doesn’t have a lot worth taking, with the exception of that key. He’s apparently important enough that Dallis The Hammer invited him onto her dreadnaught; surely this key goes somewhere useful.  Taking a detour to the north of the village: this is a Magister barracks. Their ugly insignia is plastered all over the place, and I can hear someone barking orders through the walls. Now that I have Reimond’s missive, I should be able to just walk right on in.  Just beyond the door is a Magister wearing far more decorative armour than anyone else in the Order, yelling orders at a young woman in Magister uniform. He seems pretty strung-up, from the tone in his voice and the frequency he bosses this woman around. Also, he calls her by two different names: Bellson and Bellweather. When we talk to her, it turns out her name is Bellworth. : The Magister startles, realising there’s a stranger in his midst. : My mistake – I’m looking for someone myself and I’m new to the area, so, I’m trying every building I find. : Tell me more about this investigation of yours. I may be able to offer some insight. : A tinkerer managed to dispose of three Magisters? He must have tinkered something formidable! If he isn’t hiding anything himself. : Hardly – by all accounts he seemed like just another money-grubbing nobody. He must have caught my Magisters unawares, it’s the only explanation…: No matter – he’ll face justice either way. If you catch sight of that dog, tell me or my men at once, understand? There might even be a reward in it for you…Hmm, one more quest to add to the pile. A tinkerer named Higba is accused for the disappearances of three different Magisters, and he himself has vanished. There’s quite a lot going on in this little fishing village. Voidwoken attacks and abductions; dwarven marauders and uprisings; missing Magisters; and still no sign of Siva.  This barracks has an upstairs and a cellar that I’m free to explore as I like, since Carver hasn’t kicked me out. Let’s check the upstairs first – I doubt that’s where they’d be keeping Siva, but it’s possible that I could find information up there.  It’s the personal quarters for the Magisters in the town. And it looks… pretty cramped. There are eight beds separated into four bunks with only four chests between them, and there are two washtubs for the soldiers to clean themselves in… but no privacy dividers. Still, there’s a handful of good stuff up here. There are weapon racks holding swords, staffs, and bows that probably aren’t useful but would make for good wares…  … and there’s a large, fancy chest sitting in the corner. It’s locked, and I can’t touch it without attracting the attention of the two Magisters currently up here. There’s an easy way to deal with that second issue, though. : Head nodding drowsily, the Magister brings her voluminous sleeve up to her face. She sniffs loudly and suddenly jerks to attention, eyes red-rimmed with zeal and… something else. : … You seem stressed.: She turns her back on the other Magister and leans right up close in your business. : Sshhhhh, no need to SHOUT ABOUT IT! It’s just a little tiny eensy mite of a smidgen of whatever can keep me awake. NO sleep! If I can just keep my eyes… open… I’ll be… safe.: She breathes heavily as she looks past your face, pupils dark and wide as the Void, then resumes her twitchy post.Like nearly every other NPC, Yvette can be traded with… and she’s carrying enough beer and cider to knock out an elephant. As well as two hits of drudanae. In case what her issue is wasn’t obvious. Yvette is busy talking with Fane, so if we can distract the other one with someone else, that’ll give Sebille all the leeway she needs to work.  : Oh, my mistake. I’ll be sure to pass the message on to the Voidwoken surrounding the town that they can’t invade right now – one of the town guards is on break. They’ll understand.: She narrows her eyes and pins you with a bitter stare. : I’ll do you one better: has a Voidwoken ever spoken to you before?: Her mouth narrows in a thin line of contempt. : Two bananas short of a fruit bowl, are you? Get out of here, I don’t have to listen to this nonsense in my dinner hour. Okay, that’s both Magisters in the quarters good and distracted, both of them facing away from the main floor of the barracks. I essentially have free reign to pick the place clean. First, I’ll check out that ornate chest in the corner. And I have a sneaking suspicion that Julian’s key will come in handy here.   Yep, it opens the chest just fine. And there’s a fair number of goodies in here. A bunch of money and a Finesse potion, and those are always nice, but the practical stuff is a much bigger draw. A rare-level wand that offers +3 Initiative, but both of Lohse’s wands give +1 Intelligence, so that’s a pass; an epic-level dagger (that’s called “Twist, The Knife,” which is an awesome name for a dagger) that gives +1 Finesse and +1 Single-Handed, and it also has a 10% chance to cause Bleeding, and it has a slot, so on it goes onto Sebille’s main hand; and finally, a legendary-level ring that gives +1 Pyrokinetic, +1 Geomancer, and +2 Summoning, meaning it was tailor-made for Prince. No wonder they kept this stuff under lock and key. This is a great haul.  The chests all contain things like pillows and extra blankets, which are all useless to me.  Like I said, though, they have some weapons hanging on the racks, and those are good for some coin, which I’m now in desperate need of.  This one chest is locked, and Julian’s key doesn’t fit. One lockpick later, and my reward is 122 coins and a medium magic armour potion – I just knicked some poor bastard’s reserve stockpile.  I finish looting the place – got a couple extra bucks, a dwarven dagger, some gloves, a bow, all good for extra cash – before showing myself out. I’ll want to be quick; the ladies will notice that the quarters are… a little lacking before long.  The upstairs was good for some equipment and wares, but not for information. Maybe the cellar will have something better – like I guessed earlier, if the Magisters have gallows and they’re not outside the town limits, they’d be somewhere else that’s out of sight.  Ah, the prison. Typically not a place you’d find gallows, but hell, maybe I’m wrong and she was just locked up in one of these cells.  Seems pretty lonely down here – there’s a bench with food and a deck of cards sprawled across it, but the only people I see on post are Silent Monks, and I imagine they don’t make for good conversation for a prison guard. And… do they need to eat?  The prison is only three cells large (along with some cages that are barely wide enough for a person to squeeze into), with three guards to watch over them: two Silent Monks and a single, cognizant Magister patrolling the one hallway separating them all. He doesn’t look too pleased to be here, in this dank pit with two zombies for company. : The Magister turns to you with a scowl. He already seemed immensely displeased, and your interjection isn’t improving his mood… : Your body language makes it obvious enough, but your spirit yearns for something else – to be somewhere you’d be more appreciated than a dank basement overwatching three empty cells. There’s more to life, my friend. : You should follow your instincts. At the very least, bards don’t sing about the glory of basement-prison-guardsmen.: Persuasion Success!: The Magister glances around the cells… before ripping the keys from his belt and casting them aside. : This isn’t the Divine Order I signed up for – not anymore. I’m done. Colwyn throws down a single key and then storms out of the basement, leaving just me and the Silent Monks. And as soon as he leaves the map, everything that’s listed as ‘owned’ becomes fair game – the key, the pitchforks, the tongs, and all the food and cards on the table. So, don’t mind if I do. I’m a protagonist in a CRPG, meaning I’m going to want to pick everything of value, even from the old and unused prison cells. And sometimes, things that aren’t of value, because you never know.   Inside the first cell is some poor prisoner, one Davrick Grigsby, that… looks like he hasn’t been here long, but he’s definitely dead. He’s wearing nice clothes and his body hasn’t started decomposing at all. Also, the name Davrick Grigsby reminds me of that old NES baseball game where the Japanese developers needed to come up with a bunch of American-sounding names and they come up with Dwigt Rortugal and Mike Truk, lmao  Davrick is carrying two bottles: one empty and one filled with a poisoned potion. I’ll take that potion; it’s one thing I’ve always been pretty bad at keeping up with. Although, the implications are pretty sinister. Someone gave him, or sold him, this potion. It’s pretty hard to believe that he’d willingly chug a poisonous potion.  The second cell doesn’t contain anything, other than a chunk of human flesh. Sebille!  : A painful death… trapped and defenceless…Weird, it didn’t give me the story from the narrator’s point of view this time. Well, whatever; if there was anything good or interesting to gleam from it, Sebille probably would have told me.  Back with the table and the food, there are three massive, steel-laded chests. If your character is ever thrown into prison, this is where your confiscated (i.e. stolen) goods would go if you were ever released or broken out. Two of the chests are unlocked and empty, while the third is locked, and Colwyn’s key doesn’t work on it. Sebille!    This ring is very slightly better than one of the rings Lohse is wearing right now, which gives +3 magic armour and +1 Hydrosophist. This ring gives +4 magic armour and +1 Hydrosophist and Warfare. Which reminds me: there’s one Warfare and Hydrosophist hybrid skill that Lohse should probably learn. Maybe I should put a point into Warfare on her next level up, just to make sure she keeps it when she inevitably swaps out this ring. Prince could probably learn it, too, but he’s already triple-dipping in his skills and spreading his points, and his Memory, even thinner isn’t a wise move. And Fane could learn it, but it’s a healing skill and he wouldn’t be able to use it on himself. He’d be much better off dipping into Geomancy.  Oh, speaking of. ‘Healing Advertisements,’ huh?  Hmm, a doctor living out in the fields outside of Driftwood, advertising his cure-alls. My gut says that he’s a quack, and/or a snake-oil salesman, but it’s unfair to judge until I meet the man myself. Which, again, I’m the protagonist of a CRPG, and it’s almost certainly going to happen.  Inside the last cell –  – is a torture rack with torture tools hanging off the wall. Good. Good thing to have in a prison. … Meistr Siva isn’t here, though, which is unironically a good thing. This is the last cell in the prison, so if she’s not here, then she’s likely not in Driftwood. Not unless Lohar’s got her in the tavern’s basement.  And deeper into the cell… it starts looking kind of nice. There are bookshelves to loot through and fancy writing desks, and there’s some kind of bulletin board in the back corner. Maybe this isn’t a cell and it’s the warden’s office? Pretty hosed up for the warden to keep a rack in his workspace, though. Oh, unless it’s Reimond’s office. That’d explain a bit.  Sebille’s Lucky Charm kicks in, and I find this rare-level amulet that gives +5 magic armour and +1 Aerothurge and Telekinesis. Lohse’s amulet only gives +4 magic armour, but it also gives her +1 Wits and +1 Hydrosophist, and it has a slot for a rune, so this new amulet is vendor trash.  Sitting on the far desk is a Sourcerer’s Ring. Aside from the +1 Intelligence, it doesn’t give me anything particularly noteworthy, but it’s also a unique item, so it’s probably related to some quest. I should hold onto it.  Finally, let’s take a look at this bulletin board. There’s a hand-drawn map of our chunk of Rivellon underneath all of these papers, with two spots in particular being circled. You can clearly see Fort Joy, and one of the circled locations is to the fort’s north, and a second circled location is buried underneath a bunch of these papers and way, way to the northeast. The city of Arx is a fairly prominent location in our setting – we’ve told Reimond that we’re ‘the best Source Hunters west of Arx’ – but I can’t tell if either of these locations circled are it. It wouldn’t be the spot north of Fort Joy since that’d mean we’re currently east of Arx. A bunch of the papers on top of the map are all just random scribblings and diagrams, near as I can tell, but there are five drawn portraits of characters here. Two of them, the woman up top and the man in the bottom right-hand corner, are the default profiles of the two main characters from Divinity: Original Sin, so that’s likely just an easter egg. One of them is of a magician woman that I don’t recognize, wearing a thick hood and an amulet. And two of them are of Ifan and Lohse, which is mildly concerning. They even put down Ifan twice, although given he’s a mercenary of some repute, I guess him being a wanted man isn’t terribly surprising.    It’s a map with details of some known, powerful Sourcerers within the Driftwood area. Ifan among them, although it lists his last known location as Fort Joy, so it’s not up-to-date. It also lists Saheila, the blind elf seer girl we helped in the ghetto. Hmm… the only name here that I might immediately be interested in is Mordus, a dwarf that the Magisters suspect is a part of the Dwarven resistance that’s taken up headquarters under the tavern. What in hell is going on in that tavern? Dwarves, Voidwoken, Sourcerers, international spies, and possibly Meistr Siva being held hostage. Checking that place out is becoming more and more of a priority.  Back aboveground and out of the barracks. The tavern is further down the road, heading west, but I’ve been everywhere up until the barracks except for this one house sitting at the very north-eastern corner of the village. I might as well give that a look before I continue on. It’s a big house and it has its own wharf sitting on a river that feeds into the ocean. Whoever or whatever lives here must be important.  The answer, so far, is a little girl.  : You can’t go in there, mister. The Meistr isn’t home an’ the Magisters locked her house up for her. : You speak as if you know the Meistr personally.: She’s my fwend. She was one of the magistas once! She was vewy high up. She used to look for god people an’ help them. But then she stopped that an’ just stayed in the house all the time. She used to play with me. But then the Magistas took her away, they did! They took her outside the village! : (Huh. I certainly took a roundabout way to getting this information.) Where, exactly, have they taken the Meistr? Do you know?: She looks around theatrically to see if there’s anyone listening.: *Whispers…* When the wind blows from over the stweam, I can hear the Meista. I can hear her crying.: She gives you a look of the darkest meaning. Then she takes a deep breath, puts on a happy smile, turns and skips away. The door’s been locked shut and the Magisters left a message on the door.  : The notice reads: ‘Warning! Do not enter! Crime Scene! Meistr Siva has been accused of conspiracy, murder, and high treason. She shall hang by the hands at the farmlands gallows until trial. Anyone found trespassing on these premises before her trial concludes shall be charged as an accomplice, and will share her fate.’: You notice that the message is signed ‘Magister Reimond, in the name of Dallis Most Holy.… poo poo. If I had come here first, I might have been able to ask Reimond about Siva and her crimes. As it is now, even with his missive, it’d be difficult to convince whoever’s guarding Siva to let her go, since I’d be directly contradicting Reimond’s orders.  Going from the information we just got: Siva is still alive, being hung by her hands at the gallows as she awaits her trial, and she’s probably pretty close nearby, if the little girl is telling the truth that she can hear Siva crying. If we had gone straight from the fork in the road with the chicken coop, we would have come across her eventually. Well, we’ve got ourselves a bit of a checklist for the next update!
In the meantime, though, we have two votes! What is the answer to Demira’s riddle? Do we tell the kids what’s ultimately become of their friend Joe? Let me know in 72 hours! Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Nov 21, 2021 |
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Nov 21, 2021 14:53
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Demira's riddle is a river I'm abstaining from the vote about Joe because I can't tell how old the kids are.
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Nov 21, 2021 18:23
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The riddle's a River. On the kids, I dunno. I want to keep them ignorant, but I'm unsure.
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Nov 21, 2021 18:40
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Black Robe posted:I'm abstaining from the vote about Joe because I can't tell how old the kids are. For reference, Joe was 9, so they're likely around that age.
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Nov 22, 2021 00:38
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Tell the kids, better now than never. Also, it's very much a river.
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Nov 22, 2021 01:14
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Tell the kids so they don't try to swim after him River!
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Nov 22, 2021 10:02
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Tell the kids. It's a shame you didn't keep part of Joe to show the kids. Then they definitely wouldn't make the same mistake he did.
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Nov 22, 2021 20:49
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River and Tell the kids
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Nov 23, 2021 00:33
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I like these riddles, but yeah, it's a river. I wonder how translators would approach these wordplay puzzles, would they just swap them out for their own well-known language riddles to localize them? Tell the kids about what happened to Joe. Don't mess with sharks, everyone!
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Nov 23, 2021 01:34
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Answer is Ghost and that's what the kids will become once you tell them Joe is fine and they go swimming for Fort Joy as well. And yes, both my answers are dumb.
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Nov 23, 2021 15:35
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"You see kids, Joe was ripped limb-from-limb and eaten by a vicious beast, all jagged teeth and primal hunger, while alone and helpless in the vast ocean. Then the vicious beast who ate him was killed by a hellish voidwoken demon. Then my friends and I cut the beast open, and pulled Joe's mangled remains from its belly. This lovely lady here then ate your friend's remains again so she could see the last, grisly, terror-filled moments of his short life. And that's why you should never leave your homes again, ever."
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Nov 23, 2021 19:11
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And remember, DARE to not do drugs 
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Nov 23, 2021 20:59
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So, today’s first order of business:  : Wow. You got it right, and what a challenge it was too. I am so impressed. Now, what’ll you buy with your discount?Unlike with her sister in Amadia’s Sanctuary, Demira actually gives me a discount for solving her riddle. A pretty decent one: they originally cost 13,530 gold per pop (and that’s after Bartering), and they now cost 11,500. A king’s ransom, for sure, but that’s 2,000 gold cheaper than it was before. Act Two is a big act; maybe I’ll be able to afford it before I leave. The second order of business:   : You see kids, Joe was ripped limb-from-limb and eaten by a vicious beast, all jagged teeth and primal hunger, while alone and helpless in the vast ocean. Then the vicious beast who ate him was killed by a hellish Voidwoken demon. Then my friends and I cut the beast open, and pulled Joe's mangled remains from its belly. This lovely lady here then ate your friend's remains again so she could see the last, grisly, terror-filled moments of his short life. And that's why you should never leave your homes again, ever.: The horror grows on their little faces.: No! That’s a horrible thing to say! I bet it wasn’t Joe, I bet it was someone else’s leg in that icky shark! : Death isn’t the absence of life. It’s a part of it. It’s not such an awful thing.: After a moment, the crying subsides. Ben and Harriet snuggle into you. : (I’m assuming he doesn’t mean physically.) When we die, our spirits transcend to a place we call the Hall of Echoes, leaving our mortal shells behind. Joe has gone there with his ancestors.: It’s okay to say you don’t know. You don’t have to make stuff up.: I think we should go home. Come on, Ben. Thank you, mister. Bye-bye.: Bye-bye, mister.: They skip away, still children but now… somehow… older than before. Finding and reporting Joe’s body was a quest, and as usual, upon completing a quest, we get a reward. We’re guaranteed 49 gold and a medium physical armour potion, and our options are an Ice Fan scroll, a water arrow, and a bear trap that explodes into a firestorm when triggered. Some pretty intense wares for kids to be hauling around as rewards. We don’t have any archers, so I’m split between the bear trap and the scroll. I take the scroll – as useful as scrolls are, they still scale by Intelligence, but the traps don’t, meaning it’s the better option for anyone with a low Intelligence score like Sebille.  As for where we left off: the child dancing around outside of Meistr Siva’s home told me that she can still hear Siva crying from across the river. If we had gone straight ahead from the chicken coop rather than turn into the city, we would have come across her immediately. No sense in worrying about that, though. The water is shallow enough here that I can wade straight across without having to double back to the bridge.   And awaiting me across the river is a rat, wandering around the cobblestone road by its lonesome. Rats can be useful sources of information!  : Is that because Sourcerers are a persecuted race, and you don’t anyone to think you’re one yourself? : (Now that this rat mentions it, I don’t think Siva’s race was ever brought up.) Tell me more about this lizard. : Sad to say that I’m here to put a stop to that before things go awry. I don’t take very well to anyone that acts – or speaks – unkindly to me or mine.: The rat hisses at you with sibilant malevolence. : Carry on then, stink-beast. Don’t let little old me distract you from your very important stink-business.  Just up the road a little bit is, indeed, a set of gallows. There are two lizards strung up on the gibbets: one of them wearing a Magister’s uniform, and the other wearing what looks like some sort of mage’s robes, strung up by her hands with her feet dangling just inches from the platform. There’s also a Magister sitting nearby, calmly reading a book to pass the time, and a Silent Monk standing guard. Releasing Siva wouldn’t be noiseless. Also, funny enough: Siva has the status effect ‘Grounded,’ when she’s clearly not touching the floor. The status prevents the target from being teleported, but still, it’s just funny how that worked out.  : Please, why would I kill Lucian’s second most charming son?: The lizard hangs from the gibbet, her face bloodied and her scaled discoloured. Her eyes are closed, but her tongue flickers as you approach.: Welcome to Driftwood, Godwoken.: One bloody eye cracks open, glittering gold appearing from beneath the swollen lid.: Chased - *cough* chased you all the way here from Fort Joy, did they? Very well then, cut me down. There is work to be done. : (… I suppose I might be short-tempered too, if I were in her position. And I wouldn’t want to waste time conversing either.) Just reaching up and doing it might not be the best play, though. We have Reimond’s missive – surely we can wave it at the guardswoman and make up some bullshit about how new facts have come to light and this lizard woman is innocent or whatever. Lohse! Work your bardic charms on her! : A Magister guard approaches. Behind her, on the gallows, two lizards: one, in a Magister uniform, hangs dead from her neck; the other hangs from her hands, still alive. : What’d that one do? : Yeah, about that. This one’s innocent and we’ll be setting her free. : What, do you want the honours yourself? This is internal Order business – you’d be making some waves for yourself by showing some punctuality! : Alright, think of it another way: the Meistr is a powerful spirit, one of the strongest I’ve met in my years. There’s no telling how powerful a Sourcerer like herself would become if you were to reunite her soul with the ether.: Persuasion Failure! : I have my orders – the prisoner stays where she is, and you can move along.Well, that’s a dud. Fane, cut her loose! : Excellent. Now if you’d be so kind as to gut that startled-looking Magister, it would be much appreciated. I must secure my home before they do any more damage.It’s possible to convince the guardswoman to just let Siva go. Lohse doesn’t have any points in Persuasion and Fane would have been able to do it easily. But this fight in particular is interesting (and a bit annoying), and it’s worth a fat chunk of EXP, so, far be it from me for passing that up.     : Combat Music 2: Chance To HitTurn 1 Ninyan’s first move is to whistle for help, which summons two more Magisters from further up the road to help her out, as well as a guard dog. That makes this a five-versus-five – and they even have their own team pet, like us and Secretary. Ninyan hits us all with Global Cooling followed by Whirlwind. That’s a really good move, honestly: it puts the pressure on all of us at once, and the Chilled status will make it difficult for us to run away. But what’s more important is that Ninyan has a passive status called Evasive Aura active at all times. With it, anyone within a radius around her (I’m not sure how large it is, but based on the other two Magisters that just came in and their distance from Ninyan, I’d ballpark it to be maybe 10m) gains additional movement speed and a bonus 50% chance to Dodging. That’s the whole reason why this fight is ‘a bit annoying.’ Ninyan and everyone around her is going to be hard as hell to hit. I’ll have to rely on surfaces and clouds to apply statuses.       Sebille does quite a lot this turn, although most of it is setup for something else a bit later. She uses Adrenaline for a quick extra kick, then uses Cloak And Dagger to jump to a nearby platform to give herself additional height. With her new vantage point, she uses Chloroform on the dog Bruiser, who is too far away to get Ninyan’s Evasive Aura, and she uses the last two AP she has to put down a poisoned beartrap on Rangers 1 and 2, which instantly triggers and poisons them both.  The dwarven Silent Monk repositions and uses Silencing Stare on everyone but Sebille, which is actually a gigantic pain in the rear end.      Divinity: Unleashed gives us the Undo Mute skill, which automatically unlocks if we’re muted. It costs zero AP to use, but one Source point. Bless would also cure Mute and is available to cast now, but that costs one AP. All this to say that Lohse no longer has a Source point to spend, and that’s likely going to be the case for everyone because gently caress the Mute status. Anyway, Lohse un-Mutes herself, then uses Nether Swap on herself and Sebille to instantly give herself the high ground. And with her remaining three AP, she Teleports Ninyan across the river, where I had just come from. I could have teleported her further away, but that would risk having Ninyan leave the fight, and I’d prefer she didn’t do that because then I’d have to chase her down. But at least she and her Evasive Aura bullshit is gone for a turn or two.    Prince un-Mutes himself, gives Fane the Think Fast combo, and then uses Battle Stomp on the two Rangers. This clears the poison cloud they’re in, but that’s a small price to pay for the Knocked Down status.   Fane uses Blitz Attack on both of the Rangers – perhaps a slight misplay, but we’ll see later – and then uses Crippling Blow on Ranger 1. Ranger 1 is now Snap Frozen and Crippled, so he’s probably not going to have a lot of AP to use when his turn comes around.   Ending the turn for the good guy’s team, Secretary uses Poison Dart on both Fane and Ranger 1, followed by its long-ranged attack on Ranger 1. Bruiser goes next, but it’s been asleep the entire time, and it uses its turn to wake up. Ranger 2 goes after Bruiser… but he passes. I’m not entirely certain why. But it’s not ideal for me because it’ll mean he’ll be maxed out on AP on his next turn.  And finally, Ranger 1 doesn’t have enough AP to do much of anything, like I guessed, so he just lays down a Reactive Shot. It’ll mean Fane won’t be able to move… but this is very much a ‘I’m not trapped in here with you’ situation.    Turn 2 Ninyan trudges her way across the river and, once she’s in range, goes for the three-pointer with a Frost grenade on Lohse. She’s standing next to a barrel of water, so the combination together means that Lohse is instantly Snap Frozen. Which is fine with me; I wasn’t planning on moving her anywhere anyway. Ninyan spends the rest of her AP approaching some more. She’s not close enough to help her allies with Evasive Aura, but I only have one more turn before she makes things really annoying.    Fane’s Mute wears off on its own, and he uses his first two AP to spawn the Skeletal Spider. Which, actually! We held a vote a while back on what to name the spider, and it’s only now that it’s become relevant! There were a handful of good names to give it, with Why?! And Mr. Bones Wild Ride being strong contender, but the name Bones McCoy managed to pull ahead by a single vote. Also, I’ll be calling the spider a him, since he’s named after a male fictional character. So, he spawns Bones McCoy with his first two AP, and then, for his next action, he uses Mosquito Swarm on Ranger 1. This was a minor misplay: I used it for the Bleeding status, but it would have been more useful when Fane’s HP was lower, and Swinging Sparks would have done way more short-term damage. After Mosquito Swarm, he uses Whirlwind to cap off his turn. Ranger 1 is nearly dead and likely won’t get another turn.  Bones McCoy bites Ranger 1 twice. It’s not enough to kill him, but the Bleeding and the Poison will be more than enough together to finish the job.    Ranger 2 is loaded up with AP, and he rightfully decides that he probably shouldn’t be standing next to an undead axe-wielding skeleton wearing the armour of history’s most evil Source king and his pet spider made of human skeletons, and he uses Tactical Retreat to jump onto the platform with Lohse. From there, he uses Summon Oily Blob in the center of the arena, and then First Aid on himself – Fane didn’t use Crippling Blow on him so it was probably just to recover a bit of HP. And then he moves off the plank and back on to the lower ground with his last AP. I guess he just wanted to use it? A very sus move.  Oily Blob immediately uses Fossil Strike on Lohse, a doubly-dumb move because it gets a low-ground damage penalty and because Lohse can’t move anyway.  Sebille only has two AP to use, so she doesn’t have a ton of options this turn – but there is one thing in particular she can do. Ninyan is going to be back next turn, and I can’t really stop that, but Sebille is loaded up with grenades. No matter how evasive you are, you can’t ignore surfaces unless you have wings. Sebille chucks on oil flash onto Ninyan, which makes her Slowed, which will at least help prevent her from doing too many things next turn.  Ranger 1 succumbs to his wounds.     Lohse does what she does best: spend very little AP casting a lot of support skills. She seems to be the relative life of the party with all the attention she’s getting, so she uses Restoration, Armour of Frost, and Uncanny Evasion all on herself, as well as Encourage on the entire team.    The Silent Monk uses Fireball on Bones McCoy, and since there’s a line of oil and poison reaching from him to Secretary, everyone in the center of the field explodes. The Oily Blob explodes harder, resulting in a team kill. And then the Silent Monk uses a new skill called Purge on Sebille… which steals her Source point! What the gently caress, I wanted to hold on to that! And, to make matters worse, he uses Decaying Touch on Sebille, which not only hits pretty hard, but also gives her the Decaying status, so I can’t even heal her!    It’s ‘k, though. Prince can fix her with Bless, which likewise turns the sudden lake of fire into Holy Fire. He’s not looking particularly great himself, though, so he does the strat where he puts down a fire totem and uses the boost in teammates to buff Rallying Cry to use on himself. I should come up with a name for that strategy, too. It’s a fairly decent one, if a bit expensive at 4 AP. Uh… maybe Cheerleader? The Cheerleader strat?  The fire totem fires on Ninyan. I wanted it to fire on the Silent Monk since he doesn’t have any magic armour, but, not only does the shot hit Ninyan (which is very lucky), it also detonates the oil she’s standing in, doing more damage. So I guess that’s fine.   Bruiser the dog finally gets a turn: he runs off the platform, taking an AoO from Sebille for it, and he uses Battering Ram back into the ground, hitting Prince, Secretary, and Fane, and he even destroys the fire totem. That’s a strong dog.  Secretary goes last. It does exclusively poison damage, so it hurls a glob of poison at the Silent Monk – and it whiffs. That was a 70% chance to hit.   Turn 3 Ninyan makes her way into the fray – and it looks like everyone’s been spaced out enough that the only thing to benefit from her Evasive Aura is Bruiser the dog. That’s still not great, but it could have been much worse. And then she blows out Fane’s knees with Crippling Blow, which sucks.   Because he’s freshly Crippled and Bruiser knocked him down, Fane only has three AP to work with, and the two targets beside him are Evading, so swinging at them is a fruitless idea. Well, if I can’t hit Ninyan… then I’ll just have someone else do it for me. Fane uses Shackles of Pain on Ninyan, followed by Phoenix Dive on Ranger 2. That means Ranger 2 is Taunted, and any damage he does to Fane will also be sent to Ninyan.    Ranger 2 doesn’t want to hit me, though, probably because of Shackles of Pain. He tries to run – taking an axe to the neck for it when he turns around – and opens fire on Prince, but, naturally, it whiffs entirely. Resigning to the mechanics of the game, Ranger 2 turns around and plugs Fane once, dealing 106 damage to both him and Ninyan.   Sebille throws down another oil flask on Ninyan and Bruiser – which is a misplay because now Bruiser is also on Holy Fire. Well, that’s fine: she has other options available to her. For instance, she can turn around and use Tentacle Lash on the Silent Monk. He’s being a bit of a pain in the rear end and giving him Atrophied can help with that. It whiffs. He isn’t close enough to Ninyan to get the Evasive Aura buff. That was a 70% chance to hit.  The Silent Monk laughs at Sebille and demonstrating that his hands are very much un-Atrophied by using All In on her. It whiffs. I think that was roughly a 90% chance to hit?   Lohse tries to help with the Silent Monk by hitting him with Winter Blast. Finally, something actually lands, and it gives the Silent Monk the Chilled status. She doesn’t have the AP to do much else offensively, and her utility skills are all still on cooldown, so she makes a regular attack with her wands on the Silent Monk. Her main-hand attack whiffs. That was a 91% chance to hit.  Bruiser bites at Prince’s ankles, ripping them apart and Crippling him.   Prince still isn’t doing great – Bruiser hits pretty drat hard for a dog. Prince holds all the Restoration scrolls in the party, so he uses one of them on himself to keep himself going for a bit. He doesn’t have any skills that can help in his current position, though, because everyone is on Holy Fire and is therefore really resistant to fire skills. So he just puts down a blood totem and calls it a turn.  The blood totem opens fire on the Silent Monk. It hits.  Bones McCoy makes two bites on Bruiser. They both whiff, but that’s to be expected, with Ninyan’s Evasive Aura.   Finally, Secretary hits the Silent Monk with both its long-ranged attack and with Battering Ram. This Monk has been aggravatingly slippery this fight so far; the Knocked Down status gives a really fat debuff to evasion, so this will help a lot.    Turn 4 Ninyan repositions a bit and uses Global Cooling – a favourite of hers, apparently. And it does fairly decent damage to everyone, on top of removing everyone’s Holy Fire and making everyone Chilled in its place. When she tries to reposition again, Prince gets an AoO, and not only does it hit, but it even crits. Let’s go, Prince! She returns the favour by hitting him with Freezing Touch, which makes him Snap Frozen. Still, honestly, I’ll take that trade. That was a strong crit he landed.     Sebille has an idea. A dumb one, honestly, but if it works, that’s essentially the game in my favour. First, she uses Backlash on Ninyan, which whiffs. It was more for the movement option, since she couldn’t move without the Silent Monk taking a swing otherwise. She uses Flesh Sacrifice in order to give herself back that one AP. Then she uses Ruptured Chicken on Ninyan. And they both hit. They both had, like, a 40% chance to hit. Well, goddamn. Chickens get a bonus 50% Evasion, and Chicken Ninyan still has Evasive Aura, so, if my math is right, that means that everyone now has a -10% chance to hit Ninyan – which, logically, would mean that there’s a 10% chance that swinging at Ninyan should result in hitting themselves. But that’s not the point – I didn’t do all of that so that Ninyan would be easier to hit.   Ranger 2 uses First Aid on Fane, which clears his Poisoned status, which sucks, before plugging him once with a bolt.  Lohse does just one thing. Teleportation is off cooldown, so she uses it on Chicken Ninyan and throws her across the road. So, when she crosses it, you’ll know why.   The Silent Monk repositions – he crosses some Blessed Ice, which gives him Magic Armour, which helps defend against Secretary’s AoO, which makes me upset. And then he uses Silencing Stare on everyone but Fane and Lohse, which is really a kick in the rear end. We can still use Bless to cure ourselves, but that costs AP, and nobody has any Source for Undo Mute. And Prince can’t even use Bless, it’s still on cooldown for another two turns. With his feet being Snap Frozen, there is extremely little he can do, so he delays.   Bruiser bites Prince twice. He’s wide open – why not. This puts Prince down to roughly 1/12th of his max HP.  The blood totem opens fire on the Silent Monk. It whiffs.   Fane uses Mosquito Swarm on Ranger 2. It whiffs. He kind of needed that to survive another two bolts from Ranger 2’s crossbow, so, instead, he uses Living On The Edge, which will at least buy him another turn.  Bones McCoy, in turn, bites Bruiser twice. This was a slight misplay since Skeletal Spiders can consume corpses for zero AP for a big damage and constitution boost, and Ranger 1’s been slowly decomposing for some time. But it’s not a big deal.   Secretary makes a regular melee attack on the Silent Monk. It hits. It follows up with a long-ranged attack, which should do a few extra damage. It whiffs. That was a 70% chance to hit.  Prince takes his delayed turn. Since Bruiser bit him, that put the dog in range of his melee attacks, so he just whacks Bruiser three times. His staff can turn any surface it hits into poison, so all of the blood and water mingling at his feet is instantly turned to poison. And since the blood and water was Blessed, that turns it into Blessed Poison, which does pretty much the same thing as any other Blessed surface, but it also grants Regenerating. Finally, Prince’s staff has Life Steal, which helps a little bit. Not enough to help him survive another turn if he’s focused down, but, a little.  Turn 5 Ninyan is already safely away from the fight, so she does nothing and reverts back from being a chicken. Ruptured Tendons will last another turn, though, so Ninyan’s going to have to make a call next turn if she wants to do something.  Sebille is injured and Muted. There are other targets I’d like her to focus on, but my options are pretty limited, so she just stabs Bruiser twice. It puts the dog down to 6 HP, but unfortunately, he isn’t bleeding or poisoned, so I need to spend the AP to get the last hit in manually.  Ranger 2 plugs Fane twice more, which would have been more than enough to kill him, but Living On The Edge kicks in, putting him down to just 1 HP left. He’ll be like that for the rest of the turn.   Prince is in bad shape, so Lohse uses Restoration on him. And Fane is much worse off, so, with three more AP, she uses Ice Fan on Ranger 2, making him Chilled. Not a devastating status effect, but she does what she can.   Secretary gets an AoO on the Silent Monk. It whiffs. In turn, the Silent Monk walks right up to Sebille and uses All In on her again, which hits. Her Comeback Kid granted from her outfit kicks in – she was at ¼ of her HP before the strike.   I’d like to take out Bruiser, but Sebille is in more dire straits, so Prince does the Cheerleader combo on her. Hopefully the new poison totem he just put down has the sense to shoot at Bruiser.  It does, and the attack lands, thank goodness.  Likewise, the blood totem fires on the Silent Monk as well. He was Regenerating from the Blessed poison, so he’s not bleeding, but he’s not regenerating anymore either.   Fane still has his Source point after all this time, and he’s not about to get any lower on HP, so he uses Time Warp and Death Wish on himself, giving him another turn and a fat 100% damage increase. Now all I need is to hit the bastard.   With his new damage increase, Fane uses Mosquito Swarm and Battering Ram. Mosquito Swarm was a minor misplay – Death Wish prevents healing, so he doesn’t lose the damage increase, and Mosquito Swarm causes Bleeding. The only reason why it’s a misplay is because there are more damaging options I could have chosen.    Bones McCoy consumes the corpse of Ranger 1, which 1) he does for free, 2) heals him and gives him a massive bonus to his Constition, and 3) gives him a big damage buff. With all of those bonuses from eating one little human body, Bones McCoy burrows into the ground (which is a self-teleporting skill) to get closer to the Silent Monk, and then he bites him with his embowered jaws. It whiffs.  Secretary ends the round with a long-ranged attack on the Silent Monk. It whiffs.   Turn 6 Ninyan approaches and takes 33 damage for every tick she travels, which puts her from about two-thirds full to one-quarter full. Ruptured Tendons don’t gently caress around. Rather than spend more AP and HP trying to get any closer, she instead lobs two water balloons into the party, making everyone extra soaked (and freezing the blood totem solid, somehow).   Ranger 2 is going to go next, and he’ll unquestionably kill Fane now that Living On The Edge has expired, so Sebille uses Cloak And Dagger to jump up to the nearby platform, followed by Chloroform to put him to sleep. This will hopefully buy Fane a bit of extra time.    Ninyan’s about to get back into the fight with her Evasive Aura, so I’d better do something about that now. It’s perhaps a bit overkill, since Ninyan is standing in a pool of her own blood at the moment, but Lohse uses a rain dance to soak Ninyan and have her stand in a large puddle. Then, she uses Dazzling Bolt on her. The initial strike whiffs, which isn’t surprising, but now Ninyan is standing in an electrified puddle, giving her the Stunned status. Because of that, even with Evasive Aura, everyone’s chance to hit Ninyan is around 130%.     The Silent Monk, continuing to be an absolute pest, uses Haste on himself, then high-tails it towards Fane – taking an AoO from Bones McCoy, which lands, thank Christ – and hitting him once, forcing Comeback Kid to kick in and ruining my 100% damage bonus.   Prince gives chase, approaching just enough that he can use Battle Stomp on both the Silent Monk and Ranger 2. It whiffs on Ranger 2. The blood totem goes next, and it promptly self-destructs, having been around for four turns.  The poison totem goes after that, firing on Ninyan, the only target in range, and it literally can’t miss, so that’s nice.   Fane uses Whirlwind on both Ranger 2 and the Silent Monk. It hits them both, taking out Ranger 2 and refunding the two AP he just spent – and Fane’s axe is guaranteed to set Chilled on anyone it hits. Silent Monk is wet from the two water balloons that Ninyan used earlier this turn, and Chilled kicks in, making Silent Monk Snap Frozen, meaning Fane’s chance to hit is now 261%. Interestingly, the Silent Monk was worth 1,000 EXP, while the Rangers were worth 2,000.   And to finally finish off this fight, Bones McCoy and Secretary tag-team Ninyan, hitting her once each. It’s more than enough to take her out and end the fight in my favour. The chances to hit in that fight were absolutely bananas, and half the time Ninyan’s Evasive Aura wasn’t even a factor. But we ended it with zero deaths on our side, not counting the two Comeback Kids.  This fight was one of the more memorable ones, just because of Ninyan’s gimmick. We managed to pull through!  As useful as Bones McCoy can be in a fight, I don’t think I’d prefer walking around town with a spider made of human skeletons lovingly answering my every beck and call. Thankfully, Fane doesn’t have Pet Pal, so he can summon Salem in his place – a cat is much more acceptable.  With all of the enemies dead, I exercise my God-given right of looting their bodies for goodies. That includes Ranger 1, who may have been devoured, but I can still loot his giblets for anything he might have had. As to be expected, most of them weren’t carrying anything valuable – a bit of money, some crafting ingredients, and elemental arrows that are now useless to me.   Ninyan, however… was carrying something different. I said a few updates ago that I was disappointed that I found Fane’s current axe, Hanal Lechet, because it had endgame bonuses on a midgame weapon. Ninyan’s personal axe is very, very close to that. They do the exact same amount of physical damage, but Ninyan’s axe does slightly more water damage. Ninyan’s axe gives less bonuses, but has a chance to do a bunch of statuses per swing, including Chilled, Crippled, and even skipping the Wet/Chilled/Snap Frozen sequence and setting Frozen Solid for one turn. It’s also 10% more likely to land a critical hit than Hanal Lechet. In exchange, Hanal Lechet grants more bonuses, and is guaranteed to set Chilled on hit. Honestly, it could go either way. If you’re the gambling type, Ninyan’s axe would be perfect for you, but if you’d prefer consistency, Hanal Lechet is the better option. These axes are pretty equal and there’s reason to pick one or the other. Even now, looking at their stats and writing down their pros and cons, I’m not sure which one I’d really pick. You know what? I don’t normally do this, for obvious reasons, but I can’t make up my mind. What do YOU think? Does Fane switch to Ninyan’s axe – less consistent, but more powerful when the odds kick in – or does he stick with Hanal Lechet? I’ll be sticking with Hanal Lechet for now.  While we stew on that, I head down to the sandy riverside off the cobblestone road. Big Marge said she saw a Voidwoken haul off a number of chicken eggs in this direction.  And a bit further down the way, we come across six… eggs? They look more like pods to me. They’re all covered in blood and they’re all crowned with four giant spikes. Imagine passing something like that through your body. : There’s one unaffected egg behind them! Perhaps there’s still a chance.   : Combat Music 2: Tastes Like ChickenTurn 1 As soon as I approach the eggs, I’m put into combat, somewhat unsurprisingly. Also, two of the eggs hatch, revealing Void Hatchlings – just more grubs, but much smaller. They have less than 200 HP and no armour. Sebille uses Chloroform on Hatchling 1, then Backlash on one of the eggs. If you can smash an egg before it hatches, you’ll take out the Hatchling inside it, but the eggs have more HP than the Hatchlings and a bit of physical armour.   All of the eggs are lined up perfectly for a Chain Lightning spell from Lohse, so even though Sebille just put one of the Hatchlings to sleep, Lohse lets it rip. It whiffs. On two of the eggs, at least. The other four targets all take the hit, and Hatchling 1 is already down to just 6 AP and is guaranteed to die from the electrified water it’s standing on. With one AP left, Lohse uses Encourage on the whole team.   Prince uses Battle Stomp on two of the eggs and on Hatchling 1, which kills it, but he doesn’t seem to do any damage to the eggs. I don’t know why that could have been – they’re immune to being Knocked Down, but that shouldn’t have made them immune from the damage the attack does. After that, he gives Fane the Think Fast combo.   With those bonuses, Fane uses Swinging Sparks on himself and he starts bashing the nearest egg in.  And Salem helps too!   Secretary, however, cannot help. The eggs are immune to poison damage, and it does exclusively poison damage, so it needs to sit back and wait. Hatchling 2 goes next, but it’s Stunned and, probably, very confused, so it passes.  Turn 2 Fane lands two strikes on the egg he’s been working on. One of them is a crit, which breaks it…  … and causes Mom to spawn in. She’s apparently not a fan of us, you know, killing her kids.   Fane still has three AP to use, since Executioner kicked in when he smashed that egg, so he uses Phoenix Dive to taunt Mom and ensure that she can only hit him, and he uses Shackles Of Pain on her so that she’ll start hitting herself.  The other eggs are starting to hatch, now that we’ve had a turn to beat them up. As is the case with any Zerg rush, Hatchlings aren’t a threat alone, but five of them together, plus Mom, would make them a bit annoying to deal with.    Sebille attempts to reposition to backstab Hatchling 2, but she accidentally triggers its AoO, forcing it to turn and face her, so, there goes that plan. So, instead, she uses Medusa Head to turn her hair into snakes, followed by Petrifying Visage to give every enemy on the field the Petrifaction status.   Lohse hits Mom and Hatchlings 2 and 3 with Winter Blast, which takes out Hatchling 2, and she follows it up with one swing from each of her wands on Hatchling 3. The second hit crits, which is enough to take it out. That just leaves one egg, one Hatchling, and Mom.  Prince doesn’t have a lot of options that don’t result in friendly fire, so he just puts down a fire totem and calls it a turn.  And it promptly shoots Mom.  The last egg hatches before I can break it, unfortunately, but at least the Hatchlings aren’t very hardy.  Salem hits Mom twice, and since each hits causes her to bleed, and since she bleeds poison, and since there’s fire nearby igniting the poison, each kitty swipe causes an explosion, which is rad.   After making sure that Mom isn’t fully immune to poison damage, Secretary uses both Poison Dart and its long-ranged attack on her before charging in with Battering Ram. She’s too wide and stout to be affected by Knocked Down, but Secretary is still doing damage, which is what I was hoping for.  Mom takes her turn using Dissolving Mucus on Secretary and Salem. The attack itself whiffs, but the poison it puts down at their feet detonates from the fire, and that does a chunk of damage to them both. She’s adamant in not hitting Fane in order to protect herself from Shackles Of Pain, so she also attacks Salem and accomplishes exactly nothing in doing it.  One of the Hatchlings – I’ve lost track of the numbers, but they’re going to die in the next turn so it doesn’t matter – scuttles up to Fane and whacks him twice with its proboscis.  And the other Hatchling attempts to reposition, but that triggers Fane’s AoO, and he chops it right in half. Turn 3 After Mom had her turn, she turned to stone. She goes first this turn and spends it ‘thawing’ from that status.    Fane uses Whirlwind to kill the last Hatchling and land a crit on Mom, putting her down to about 19 HP. One more swing takes her out, and even if it missed or somehow didn’t kill her, Executioner gave him one more swing if he needed it. That, and his entire party would go one after the other for their own shots. When Mom dies, she leaves behind a massive, gooey pile of greenish bug guts splattered all over the ground. It’s also Cursed, electrified, and on fire, so moving through it is pretty dangerous right now.  The Hatchlings all just contain lumpy giblets as ‘loot,’ but Mom’s leftovers has one of her legs and a hazy ruby. The hazy ruby is a typical Voidwoken drop in lieu of money, but the legs are actually worth a bit more, so they’re worth holding on to. But in the meantime! While I wait for Mom’s blood and guts to stop being so dangerous, everyone finally caught up with Sebille in that we all levelled up!  We’re at level 10, meaning we’re roughly halfway to the intended ‘cap.’ There is no hard cap for levelling, but the final boss of the game is balanced around you being level 19 or 20ish, in typical D&D flair. With this level up, we also get a new point to invest in our civil skills. Fane’s attribute points go into Memory (natch) and Strength; his combat point goes into Warfare; and his civil point goes into Persuasion. Both of Lohse’s attribute points go into Memory (wizards, understandably, could use it more) and her civil point goes into Loremaster, putting it up to 4, which is really high for my current location, but better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. For her combat point, though, I actually put it into Warfare – I really want that Warfare/Hydrosophist hybrid skill and I’m going to need the point if I want to use it. Prince’s points go into Memory x2, Summoning – putting it up to a hilarious 15, but 8 of those points are in his equipment, and I can’t use those as a crutch forever – and although Prince is my Barterer, I put his civil point into Lucky Charm. A lucky find can be worth more than saving a few bucks here and there and Sebille is going to swap out of her pirate’s set sooner or later. And finally, Sebille, who’s been holding onto her points for a while now, puts her points into Polymorph, which gives her an extra attribute point, and she spends those three on Memory, Finesse, and Wits. And her civil point goes into Thievery (and therefore Sneaking, thanks to Guerilla and the Divinity: Unleashed mod), which doesn’t seem very ‘civil’ to me.  Everyone’s got a little bit of a buffer for Memory again, which is great. Fane with 3, Lohse with 5, Prince with 6, and Sebille with 10 – I should really get her some new skills to play with. That, and/or have her spec into a third school to pad her arsenal – maybe Geomancy? Fortify is a nearly-essential skill and I’ve essentially gone up until now without it.   A short ways from the fight with the Voidwoken is… a chicken egg, left unmolested from the Voidwoken’s influence. According to the tooltip, its name is Peeper, and it’s nearly ready to hatch: it occasionally makes sounds that can be heard through the shell.  It being an egg, I could consume it. Who knows what bonuses it could grant me if I did. I won’t. But I could… But I won’t.
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Dec 7, 2021 21:02
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 The chicken coop is less than a minute’s walk away. One short jaunt later, and I’m back with Big Marge and the others. : Babies gone, stolen eggs, stolen and gone! : I found your eggs, Marge, but… I’m afraid they were used to house Voidwoken. The chicklets within them are…. : It’s a small consolation, I realize, but… no. Not all gone. Here.: She leaps up and grabs the egg with her foot, kicking it under her warm underbelly and settling down upon it contentedly.: Shh, shh, little Peeper baby, Mama’s here and warm and here with you again.: She cocks a black eye up at you and winks.: Thank you! BACAW! I have something for you! Something I buried. Behind the coop! It’s yours! It’s yours!: Unless some other scratchly-poker found it first, of course…Upon completing this quest, our reward is 5,000 EXP – a fat chunk for helping out some farm animals – and instead of the usual ‘choose your reward’ screen, it’s whatever Marge buried behind the coop. I don’t imagine chickens are known to carry material goods like equipment or consumables anyway. Another reward we get is that the coop’s emotional attitude brightens pretty significantly once the egg is back. There were seven eggs and we only managed to rescue one, but that’s better than zero, at least. : You! You, you, you! You helped us. You brought the baby back! BACAW!: Brood an eggy baby egg…: Happy little family, aren’t we? Yes we are!: Egg! Egg! Peeper!: B-o-o-o-ck! I believe this mound is impossible to find unless you complete the quest.   Buried in the mound is a ruby – a clear one, not like the hazy ruby left by the Voidwoken. It’s worth 270 gold – not a huge sum but a fair amount, especially coming from a chicken. While chickens may not be known to carry human-tailored goods, there’s probably more than one recorded instance of them hoarding shiny things, and rubies are undeniably shiny.  Funny enough, I can reach underneath Marge and steal Peeper back, if I wanted.  But we have more pressing matters to attend to! We’ve rescued Meistr Siva, the one person that knows best how we can achieve divinity via our innate control of Source. It’s time we see to that. : The Meista’s back! The Meista’s back! She doesn’t feel like playing, but. *Pouts.*  The door to her home’s been pushed open, with the message pinned to it removed, and the inside of her house… isn’t looking great. The place has been turned upside down, with furniture left all askew and clothing strewn about the floor. As soon as I enter, I’m forced into a conversation with the Meistr. : The Meistr sits slumped in a chair, looking around the room as she works her shoulder with one hand. It looks like it was dislocated by the gallows.: Damnable red-cloaked baboons, ransacking my wardrobes! As if I would keep ancient, valuable secrets in a pile with my unmentionables.: She takes a deep breath and with a twist, a click, and a screech of pain, she shoves her shoulder back into its socket.: I swear by the Seven, if *cough* if we did not have more important matters to attend to…: Reaching across the table, she pulls a bowl of hot water towards her and fishes some bandages, a needle, and thread out of a box. She slowly starts to tend to her wounds. : I was told you were once a Magister yourself. Why did they string you up like that?: Apparently I had a claw in murdering their darling ‘Divine-in-waiting’ Alexander.: The Meistr wrenches the bandage, pulling the fabric tight against her wound. She winces before tying it off in a neat knot, but you can see the red stain already spreading across the fabric. : … I may have had something to do with it. And by ‘may’ I mean… well. Don’t ask me what I have in my pocket.: Meistr Siva freezes, her eyes locked on you, her claws mid-swipe, cutting a new stretch of bandage.: *Sigh.* Why on earth should I have thought anything else?To be fair, a Sourcerer prisoner shipped off to the most deadly island prison in the world killing the highest-ranking military official around probably should come as a surprise.  : What comes next for us?: It is not enough to be Godwoken in order to ascend to Divinity. There is a process…: As she speaks, the Meistr uncorks a vial of shimmering liquid: Source! She lets a couple of drops fall on her hand, but instead of infusing with her body, they quickly evaporate on her scales. She stares at the empty spot on her palm for a long moment before turning back to you, continuing as if nothing had happened. : As thrilling a conversationalist as I am, I’ve… spent enough time alone to learn that there’s nothing more I can teach myself. : Well… what do we do next, then?: We shall begin once we have – *cough* – the tools we need from my vault. You may have been chosen, Godwoken, but becoming Divine requires more than a supernatural pat on the head.: Come, Godwoken. It is time to see just how ‘awake’ you are.: Fortunately, the Magisters pay as much attention to art as they do fashion. Kindly remove that painting from the wall. There’s garbage thrown all about the house, evidence of the Magisters and their attempt to find Siva’s vault. Most of the stuff isn’t worth picking up or messing with…  … but I’m still going to loot through every basket, shelf, and wardrobe, because you never know when Lucky Charm might kick in.  Most of the books that Siva has is just flavour stuff, but since I’m highlighting this one book specifically, whatever information is inside it is going to be important for later, clearly.   Fascinating stuff on trolls and their behaviourisms and their apparently impossibly-resilient healing factors.  Unfortunately, my looting and scouring for free loot doesn’t yield any results, other than this Restoration scroll. It happens that I’m short one since that last fight with Ninyan, so, that helps a bit.   Huh, another traveling group of four heroes, hailing from Driftwood. And ‘the implements of victory shall rest where they slew their enemies,’ that’s some useful information. Maybe there’s some powerful loot to be had.  After I’ve picked the place clean, there’s just one thing left to do: what Siva asked me to, after I robbed her. And I’m still robbing her; she didn’t tell me to help myself to the art. : I pray my instructions will not be too technical for you. Ahem…: Push. The. Button.  After pressing the button, Siva’s bed starts to shift out of place, lifting up and pressing against the wall, revealing a hatch beneath it. : Your talent for following simple instructions fills me with wonder and pride. Now, kindly go to the vault and enter the combination. I shall call it out as you go. : Taking your time, you carefully enter the combination. The metallic sounds of the tumblers falling within the mechanism let you know you entered the code correctly.The Divinity: Original Sin 2 wiki lists what is apparently the actual combination to her vault. Forcing the lock open is probably an option, but I’ve never done it before, and I’ve never seen it come up in narration or dialogue.   : Feel free to look about while I catch my breath. Come speak to me when you wish to proceed. And try not to break anything in the meantime…Welcome to Siva’s basement. It’s filled with barrels and crates and lootable furniture, which is all the more chances for Lucky Charm to kick in. It doesn’t very often, as you might guess. Speaking of, I never talked about the mechanics of Lucky Charm. Long story short, the higher your stat, the more likely you’ll find epic or legendary loot (but nobody’s ever found any divine loot). Lucky Charm has a 5% chance to trigger whenever you open a container, but if you get your Lucky Charm stat above 5 (which isn’t possible with level ups alone), then the extra points you put into it are instead allocated to increasing the likelihood of finding rare loot – with 6.67% at 10 Lucky Charm, so, it’s not worth the effort going above 5. The Drunk status gives you +2 Lucky Charm, so what you can do is you can get one person drunk, have them enter conversation, which pauses statuses, and then use the boosted Lucky Charm with someone else to start looting places. I should start doing that.  Hey, score. This staff isn’t really anything special, but it’s worth 708 gold, so that’s nice.  Siva’s basement looks like some kind of pseudo-laboratory, filled with weird pots and jugs and alembics… as well as an incinerator. I suppose destroying failed or useless projects can be useful for keeping out clutter. She also has a couple of hand grenades just sitting out in the open, which I’m free to help myself to.  Would be a good potion for Lohse to have.  If I didn’t have the Rest Restores Source mod active, this is where I’d go for a hit of Source whenever I needed it. Siva’s house isn’t a Waypoint for me to fast travel to, but now that I have the Teleporter Pyramids, I could just put one down and teleport back to here whenever I needed a hit.  Notes on ‘Godwoken Ascension,’ huh?   The ritual to ascending as a Godwoken involves soaking some weed in my own blood and getting real high off it. Sounds like a good time to me, except I play as a bony skeleton man: there’s going to be a small issue with respect to the blood procurement and the ‘holding smoke in my lungs’ bit. I guess I could stab someone else for the blood, but the lungs still provide a small issue.  That’ll come in handy! Even Source skills like Chain Lightning can be condensed into a scroll – but they require a Source Orb to do so, and Source Orbs have a ton of uses beyond being a crafting ingredient.  Likewise, this is a Source skill that summons a ‘hungry flower’ to whoever summons it. Lohse doesn’t have a pet yet; she can hold onto this scroll.  The last thing to loot through before continuing with my mission is this weird, floating obelisk thing. This is a treasure chest, despite its look. Since Siva is apparently the type to hold onto weird and unusual bits and bobs from times long past, there’s reason to believe that we’ll find some locale that has this aesthetic and treasure chests like this one are the norm.  Oh, poo poo, score! A Source Orb, right there for the taking!  Like I said before, Source Orbs have all sorts of uses: they’re a crafting ingredient; they’re a consumable for a quick shot of Source; and they’re actually considered to be runes, and you can slot them into the rune slot of any equipment that has one. When you do, then, rather than giving you stat buffs, they instead unlock a Source skill that you can use without needing to memorize it or put any points into the skill’s school. For example, if I put this Orb into a weapon, then whoever wields that weapon will get the Venomous Aura skill, which grants everyone in range around the caster additional Poison damage to their weapons. They’re also worth a shitload of money. This one Orb is worth 1,400 gold.  Sebille slots the Orb into her newest weapon, Twist, The Knife, so she can ponder her orb every time she stabs someone. Nailed it.  Anyway, it’s time to get high. : The Meistr is examining her wounds. Prodding at this, wincing at that. Her face seems grim as she turns to you. : I can’t speak for my travelling companions, but to me, being Godwoken means finally learning the truth.: You would trade every soul in Rivellon for the sake of knowledge? You would make a ferocious librarian. No, becoming the Divine means taking on the power of all the Gods, and the responsibility for all the races. The Divine was created by the Gods to shelter us all from the Void. : … Yes, alright. I understand. There’s more to being Godwoken than progressing your own agenda.: Very well then. Let’s see if you can’t snatch Divinity from the jaws of the Void.: The ritual itself is quite simple: drop some blackroot in a bowl, mix in a little blood, set the concoction aflame, and then… well, not ‘inhale’ the smoke, but whatever the skeletal equivalent is. Ignore any feelings of dizziness, itchy bones, or a dire sense of existential dread. They are all perfectly normal, although you will need to sacrifice a little Source along the way.I wonder what that’d feel like. There’s an entire vat of Source right behind her – is that the equivalent of saying ‘you’re going to get a little thirsty?’ : Everything you need is here: ingredients in the cupboard, Source in the glowing fountain, ritual in the tome by the bookcase – even an incinerator to provide a flame. : (Perhaps mortals respond differently to open wounds than my kind in my time.) Have you ever seen this ritual performed? Have you ever done it yourself?: Once, although not by a Godwoken. My assistant did not believe that one had to be chosen by a god to become Divine.: She waves a bandaged hand absent-mindedly, wincing slightly.: A headstrong and thoughtless girl, but the experience was – *cough* – was quite educational. : You really let your own assistant go through with that, even though she wasn’t Godwoken?: Well, certainly. It is not my place to police the stupidity of others. I have to admit I was curious – imagine if it had been a success! Why then anyone could have ascended. Even I… : Indeed, that’s not a phenomenon I’ve ever had the fortune of witnessing myself! Thankfully, I’ve already met my matron. Twice, now. The most I risk is perhaps a bit of dehydration and a headache.: And do not lose anything! These ingredients are rare indeed. I am not hiking back out to the Cloisterwood to fetch you more blackroot.The ingredients are rare? That’s specifically not what the book said – the ingredients aren’t ‘rare’ but they are ‘difficult to acquire.’ Anyway, it’s a pretty straightforward process and starting the ritual forces you to use the crafting menu if you’ve managed to go all this time without crafting anything, so it’s something of a minor tutorial. Everything you need is in the cupboard directly behind the Meistr.   : After a quick rummage, you spot the blackroot nestled between the grated dragon’s tongue and drudanae oil.If a drudanae flower is enough to seriously mess up a person, I wonder how powerful its oil is – something that would have been made from squeezing the dew out of many drudanae flowers. : You gather up the blackroot, obsidian lance, and ancient bowl, and kick the door of the cupboard closed.So, the first thing to do with this little recipe is to combine the blackroot with the bowl.   After that, you select the obsidian lancet, and you ‘use’ it. It’ll cause 1 damage to yourself, which, in theory, means you could die from it. I wonder if there’s any unique dialogue for that.   I’m sure you’ve been curious on how a skeleton, or a theoretical team comprised only of undead, could progress from this point. When you stab yourself with the lancet, it gets covered in your bone marrow, which, as I understand, might be much worse than your blood? But this also assumes that you have blood, I suppose. Then, you combine the newly-damped lancet with your filled cereal bowl…   Even though bone marrow isn’t red, that bowl is red as could be. And finally, all you need left is to set the bowl aflame. This could be done with anything at all, including any of Prince’s Pyrokinetic spells or his fire breath, but we might as well use Siva’s incinerator. Make sure the destruction is as contained as possible. This also means that the ritual could be performed anywhere, at any time, provided you keep all the tools and find some more blackroot – which is a thing that we could do.    And the result is this hazy green cloud that lingers in the air. This is the Good poo poo that’ll get us so completely blazed, we’ll see the face of God.  : As the world fades away, you lose all sense of being grounded. You reach out, but you can feel yourself falling slowly, sinking into the depths of your own soul. And here we are for the third time. Supposedly, we’re inside Fane’s soul, but, as he points out, it looks like the land of the dead. Which, you know. Is appropriate. It’s nice that Sir Lora took the time out of his busy squirrel schedule to get high as hell with us. Which apparently means he’s also Godwoken?  Like our previous visits here, there’s only one way forward, although the layout is a little… concerning. There are ramps to my front and my left, and there’s a high ground to my right. It’s a very deliberate and familiar layout. Combat in the Hall of Echoes isn’t unheard of: when we first visited Lady Amadia, the other gods were off in the distance all beating the poo poo out of each other. And, if I remember correctly, they were all level 20 or 21. So… I’d like to avoid combat here, if I can.   Up ahead is… me. I’m inside my own soul, after all – it makes sense that it’s me that I’d meet. But, wait a minute. Is that me?  Is that me stronger than me?! : Bathed in the half light of this eerie, starless landscape you spot a figure you could only describe as… you. Another you. It looks haggard and weak, its voice merely a feeble echo of your own. : I’ve been alone with my own thoughts for long enough to know how I speak, and I like to think I know Lady Amadia well enough to know how she speaks.: I certainly can’t blame you for choosing such an attractive apparition, though. To whom am I really speaking? : No beast… no monster… merely an illusion… to be dispelled…: The apparition clasps your face in shaking, skeletal hands, and you feel a tingle run through your bones. Everything becomes brighter, sharper; blacks and whites become glorious bursts of colour before fading back to their accustomed spectrum.: Time to open the eyes you lost so long ago… to see the world… as you once did…. Speak the spell… and see… With that, every party member has learned a new innate skill: Spirit Vision. Like our unique Source skills, such as Time Warp and Demonic Stare, it costs no memory to equip and is simply available to us whenever we want. This fake Fane wants us to cast Spirit Vision, to ‘open the eyes we’ve lost.’ No harm in using it now, I suppose.  : Gone is the strange mirror image of yourself: before you stands the goddess Amadia in all her spectral glory.: Fane’s Theme : You know me now, don’t you, Fane? Your sister. Your guardian… You were my hero once… You must be so again. Your kindred soul was my last refuge, my last bastion… from here I can aid you. But only if you grant me one small kindness…: Amadia stretches out and nourishes herself from the Source that abounds in your presence. You feel it, deep down inside yourself, as it drains away. : I’d imagine there was no such threat. We’re Eternals. It’s in our name. We don’t simply die like the mortals do.: Once perhaps. Today, immortality is only permanent until the day it ceases to be so. The War has taken its toll.: The forces of the King are hunting us down, leeching us in ways we never thought possible. Droplet by droplet we are being drained. : I find myself growing less and less fearful of the King with each passing day. I don’t care for his threats.: Indeed, he may come to fear you. If you do as I say. You must realise, dear one, that our fates are now as one, just as our souls are now as one. We are I. United, we are a force to be reckoned with, but if we are to survive the onslaught of the King and his Void minions, you must remember what you have forgotten. We must become vastly more powerful. : The seven of you had managed to harness the power of the Viel containing the Void before. Was it at this ‘Well of Ascension’ that you did it?: It is a lake: a pool of pure Source, containing half the powers of each of the Gods. We gave those powers up freely to create the first Divine, a mortal we infused with our united strength. To bathe in the lake, is to become the Divine. : I may have become ingratiated with some mortal concepts during my stay in the current era, but if my progress is any indication thus far, ‘failure’ is not among them.: I know, sweet child. Do you think I chose you for that fine bone structure alone?: It is important you realise how high the stakes are. The Void has never been this strong. A new Divine won’t be enough. You need to go to the Well of Ascension not to bathe in its powers, but to take them. All of them. : … Won’t that… mean that you, and the other six lords, will be left as mortals? If I take all of your Source, I’ll be taking what makes you Eternal.: I’m… I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that. With the very idea.: Whatever for? The other gods will either bow to you, or be undone! Of course the others are saying the same to their mortal Godwoken as we speak.: But there can be only one.: So make no mistake, dear Fane: the road to divinity may well mean the blood of those six traitors staining your ivory hands. : What did you mean by that last part? About you being my ‘true’ kin?: Dearest heart, you cannot tell me you look about this world and see an Eternal realm? It is far too crude. The others have picked up the taint of their mortal pets, and contaminated this world accordingly. : … And of the mortal races? If an Eternal becomes their god, what will become of them?: They will be at your mercy, which is vastly preferable to you being at theirs, wouldn’t you agree?Bit of a red flag. : So fret not, but revel in the promise of the lake! I will lead you there when you are ready: when you have remastered the Source and once again speak the language of creation. : If all I need is to learn, then surely it is you, Lady Amadia, that would tutor me best. You are both Eternal and one of this realm’s seven lords.: Laughter rolls and echoes into infinity.: You flatter me, dear child, but if all I had to do was give, you would have received long ago.: We are I now. I shall teach you the spells you need to remember soon, but not before you relearn how to channel the Source in greater volumes. That is why you need to seek these ‘Masters of the Source’. You must make them teach you, so that you can regain your full power. They may be nothing but mortals, but like all mortals they have their uses. Return to Rivellon, seek them out, and force these ‘Masters’ to share the knowledge they have gleaned. : Well, again, that circles around to my original point: there are none in existence that know more about Source than you, except, arguably, the other lords. : Very well, but I have one final question: what, exactly, have you done to my eyes?: You had forgotten how to view the world, my child. This will make you understand that for us there is precious little difference between the living and the dead.: Source is. It is a constant, a subject of neither time nor transience. All of life is Source, and in Source it is. Immortally so. Your vision has been restored, giving you the power to see spirits – the souls of dead mortals made manifest in Source. Speak the spell during your peregrinations and you will see them. Where the dead lie, the dead linger.: Good luck, dear Fane. Make me proud.Okay! So, now that we’ve completed the ritual–   Um. Hi. : A man’s spirit stands before you, clad in scholarly dress. When your eyes meet, he staggers back, terrified. : Sweet Amadia, why do you test your chronicler so, haunting me with spirits… : I’m afraid you’re mistaken. You are the spirit. And while I cannot say that I’m alive, per se, I can certainly say that I am not dead.: The chronicler shudders, looking sick to his stomach.: Again. This again. I sleep, then I wake, and another piece of the world is gone…: The Empress! It was her, it was that armour. I died for it, and now I’m trapped here! I… died. Oh, Amadia. : Tell me more. What were the circumstances about your death?: Me? I archived Rivellon’s history. I used ink to immortalise greatness on the page. A lizard Empress sought my services. She needed an ancient design restored from a damaged text. She told me the design was brilliant. When the armour was forged, the Empress showed it to me, and – and – she trapped me inside. Consumed me. : As I said, I still walk the earth. I can free you from your prison, if you can tell me how.: If I knew the way, I’d shout until every god heard me. But I have no idea – I simply want this to end.: The chronicler puts his head in his hands, collapsing in silent defeat.Right on, this is another DLC sidequest! A lizard Empress used this poor man to recreate an armour’s design blueprint, and as a reward for his services rendered, his very soul was consumed within the magic armour and sent here to linger for eternity – within, uh, my soul, since this isn’t technically the Hall of Echoes. That’s pretty hosed up. I’ll have to keep my eye out for a second evil, insane queen that’s wearing armour that can rip the very souls out of people and leave them in limbo. Sounds like some rad armour!  Now that I’ve spoken with everyone within my soul, I just need to head out the same way I came in: via drugs.  And now I’m back in the Meistr’s basement. And… there’s a new friend with us down here as well. : The Meistr stares intently at you. Her eyes are tired and bruised, but determined.: Still alive? Gods above, there might be something to you after all.: She leans in, her bloody tongue flickering hungrily about your face. : […]: She sighs impatiently as you hold your head in your hands, rubbing what’s left of your temples. : As you say, it’s not exactly a simple task that I’ve been given, Siva. It’s not like I can just open a sluice.: *Sigh* Indeed not. And ever more difficult when you’ve been purged. I was a ‘Master of Source’ once, but no longer. The Magisters saw to that.Holy poo poo, the Magisters used a Purging Wand on Siva, and she was such a Source badass that she survived the ordeal without becoming a meat puppet. Although now she can’t channel any of it at all – she tried restoring some to herself in her bedroom before, but the liquid Source evaporated in her hand. I, personally, am not a Sourcerer, but I can imagine that’s like having one of your senses ripped from you. Better than being dead, but… it’s something you just have to live with, now. : The river of my Source has been dammed. My link to the font from which it flows, severed. So we must seek alternatives… Alas, the only Source Masters not yet hauled off to Fort Joy or turned into meat puppets are those too dangerous or cunning for the Magisters to contain. : You’re suggesting I learn how best to manipulate the flow of Source, my connection to the ether, from teachers that would use it to manipulate the world to their own ends.: You will not be there long, I assure you. There is only so much you can glean from a twisted mind. However, it is the path we walk. No – *cough* – no matter the cost. No matter *rasp* what is asked of you –: The Meistr doubles over in a violent coughing fit, struggling for breath. After a few moments she regains her composure, wiping a thin smear of blood from the corner of her mouth. : … My knowledge of mortal healthcare and medicine is admittedly thin, but perhaps you should –: And you do not seem to be paying attention. Sourcerers. Evil. Controlling your Source. Saving Rivellon. Please – *cough* – please tell me at least some of this rings a bell. : (If I recall, Malady did once say something about Meistr Siva getting into the habit of being overly focused on whatever task is laid before her. Even if it could be the death of her, clearly.): While I was searching for you in Driftwood, I came across a list of Sourcerers hidden in the prison cells in the Magister barracks. Perhaps I can start with these names.: My my, you have been a busy little creature, haven’t you? Yes, they would do nicely. You may need to visit several of them – I doubt any one would be willing to give up all of their secrets,: As she speaks, one of her wounds reopens, a dark red stain spreading across her tunic. She hisses in frustration and starts to bind the gash. : I’ll get it done as quickly as I can. Meeting with ourself disguised as Amadia, and then having a catch-up with Siva afterward, nets me a cool 1,000 EXP. At our current level, and with how EXP needs to scale to make a difference, 1,000 EXP is barely anything at all – a drop in the bucket. This is a pretty big update, but there’s just two things left to do before I wrap this one up, and that’s have a talk with Sir Lora, who was with me when I went inside my own soul, and this ghostly apparition that’s been standing beside me this entire time. Might as well start with Sir Lora. He seems to be a crowd favourite.  : Quercus! What are you looking at? Egad, stop gawking at the Shield! You ought to be quite used to such journeys into that stone realm by now. Meanwhile, the Acorn draws nearer! : I wasn’t aware you could read mortal script and that you were a scholar as well as a knight! Your library of skills is fascinating.: I – um – er – haha! Our gargantuan friend is easily impressed. Wait until it learns that I’m a knight, a scholar, and a wizard capable of saving the world.: … No, of course it knows that already, Quercus. Yes – yes, I’m aware it’s the entire basis of our partnership. No, I most certainly do not feel the need to return the compliment!: I owe our Shield my life several times over; I hardly need to grovel and thank it each time. I’m sure it knows I appreciate it…: Now, if you’re quite finished ogling your favorite long-legged scratching post, we need to get on and save the world already!Aw, we have a fan   That just leaves… whoever this is. : The spirit of an elegant elven woman materialises before you. She seems surprised. : You must be Siva’s… former apprentice. What could have driven you to do something so reckless, if you knew the risks?: The spirit looks at you regretfully. : It is hard to hear of such power, and not covet it for yourself. I lie to myself, and convince myself that I am special. But I am not special. I am dead.Well, let this be a lesson to you all: don’t do magic god drugs unless you are specifically told by God that you are their chosen one. Like I said before, everyone now has a skill called Spirit Vision. It costs nothing to equip and nothing to cast. In the base game, it’s active for about 20 turns (two minutes-ish), and while it’s up, you can see the spirits of anyone that had died nearby and you can communicate with them as if they were alive. Typically, the game tried to give you hints as to when you should use it – dead bodies are usually a big giveaway, but there’s also things like being told that someone died, such as what Siva did for her apprentice, or things like blood splatters and dismembered body parts, etc. However, most people just… didn’t use it, because it’s annoying to cast Spirit Vision every two minutes and most players don’t pay that much attention to the environmental storytelling. That, and sometimes it isn’t obvious. So, as one of the Larian Gift Bag mods, Spirit Vision can be enabled permanently, which is what I’ve enabled. If there’s ever a spirit nearby, I’ll wander into it eventually.  That’s another hefty update for the books! I’m sure a handful of you are looking forward to me finally getting to the Black Bull Tavern. It’s a pretty notorious location in this game, usually for one reason in particular. I promise I’ll get to that next update. Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Dec 8, 2021 |
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Dec 7, 2021 21:05
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Stick with Hanal Lechet. In this game, guaranteed crowd control with Chilled and more stability in your damage dealing tank is the better option. If the numbers were a bit more consistent with the executioner's axe I'd say switch them, but you can't ignore the guarantees your current axe gives you.
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Dec 8, 2021 20:07
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Definitely stick with his current axe, the RNG utterly loathes you based on every fight we've seen and you don't want to give it even more reason to make you whiff your turns. Even if the new axe does sound better on paper, it won't help if you're not able to hit things with it.
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Dec 8, 2021 20:35
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Poor Bruiser  Game needs a skill mod to take dogs out of combat when at low health
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Dec 9, 2021 18:00
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I also say keep the Hanal Lechet. I have a deep distrust for RNG in games. As an example, I appreciate the way you turned every single attack in that Ninyan fight into a cliffhanger just because the game wants you to miss constantly.
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Dec 16, 2021 06:48
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Well, I say Swap for the new axe! I like seeing extra RNG, especially when I'm not the one playing.
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Dec 20, 2021 17:17
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 It’s a new update! This update is going to be 90% focused on the Black Bull Tavern and everything going on in and around it. This being an RPG – one heavily inspired by D&D, at that – taverns are where you go for all the latest news and quests to get your party busy for the next several hours/play sessions, and Divinity: Original Sin 2 is no different. There’s lots and lots to do in the Black Bull Tavern. I’m sure anyone who’s played the game has been looking forward to this update and the next few updates, and anyone who hasn’t is looking forward to learning just what the hell is going on in there.  But before we get to that, let’s focus on the other 10% of this update first. The town square for Driftwood is where all the shops and stalls are. All of them are run by people, and people can be stolen from. It’s going to be a bit of a challenge, though….    These three targets are the most valuable. In order, they sell the Pyromancy/Geomancy/Aerothurge/Polymorph skillbooks, the Hydrosophist/Necromancy/Summoner skillbooks, and Warfare/Marksman skillbooks as well as all of the weapons and armour. I could steal from the fourth vendor, but all he has is the Void-tainted fish, which, you know, I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to get. Sebille’s sneaking stat is high enough that she can potentially steal from all of them without entering anyone’s cone of vision, but the biggest challenge is that there are four NPCs that patrol the area – one guard, one human, and two dwarves – and I only have three people that can run distractions. It just means that I’ll have to be quick when I start on my targets. I need to know what it is I want and not waste time.  The guard’s route takes her to the bull stables at the entrance of town, which removes her from the square entirely, so that’s an easy distraction.  This dwarf comes right up to the first stall, which is about as ‘tucked away’ as she’s going to get on her own walk cycle. I could have positioned Lohse a little better so that the dwarf isn’t facing the stall as much, but whatever, I don’t need much wiggle room anyway.  And Prince holds onto this other dwarf’s attention for a bit. That just leaves the wandering human, but there’s not anything I can do about her.  With everyone squared away, I get started on the armourer first. His stall is next to the pathway to Siva’s house, and nobody’s on that route, making it a safe place to start.  I help myself to a magician’s mantle (a chestpiece); a new dagger for Sebille to replace the one in her main hand; and for the rest, I just take a fistful of cash.  I believe I mentioned this back in Amadia’s Sanctuary, but NPC’s will notice that they’ve been robbed as you’re robbing them if you take too long. This doesn’t mean that you’re caught, but it does mean that you don’t have any time to faff about, and as soon as you take something, you’re on the clock until they start wandering around and accusing people.  I don’t believe I’ve gone into detail about what happens when an NPC realizes they’ve been had, though. When that happens, NPCs will leave their designated walking routes to investigate where the thief could have gone, which means that stall owners like this guy will leave his stall. And if an NPC finds any one of your characters, they force them into a dialogue, pulling them out of any dialogue’s they’re currently in.  For example, the arms dealer Haran immediately pulls Prince out of his talk with this dwarf. You’re given three options when this happens: to allow the NPC to search your stuff; to try and talk (or bribe) your way out of the situation; or, as usual, to attack. If the NPC isn’t a guard, and the character they’re speaking to isn’t holding their stolen goods, then you can allow the search and they’ll be satisfied that you’re not holding any of their goods and they’ll leave that party member alone.  : Let me take a look, then. I promise it won’t take long.: Nothing unusual here. Looks like I was wrong about you!It’s always generic dialogue that every single NPC can use, so none of it is voice acted. If the NPC is a guard, and you’re holding anything that’s labeled ‘Stolen,’ then they’ll attempt to confiscate it, whereupon you’ll be given the options to talk (or bribe) your way out or to attack once more. If you ever get antsy about playing a rogue being found out, know that stolen gold is never labelled as Stolen, so you can steal all the money you like and no guards will ever get you for it.  If you hold something that a normal person would consider ‘weird,’ i.e. a human goddamn face, then they say something new to acknowledge that. : Nothing unusual here. Oh wait, here’s something odd… I see. Well, I must be off! After enough time, the NPC will return to their post, and the heat will be dead, meaning it’s safe to come back and start shopping again.  There’s just barely enough room here for me to start knicking the goods off this dwarf. It takes a bit of finesse and gentleness, but with Sebille’s sneaking stat, there’s a tiny sliver of safe space to the dwarf’s left that she can sidle into.   I take a bit too long helping myself to his wares and he gets wise to my tricks…  … and I get very lucky in that he turns the other way to start investigating. This one was only holding some skillbooks, so I help myself to a handful. Two Pyromancy books; one Polymorph book; and a bit of cash.  This lady’s the last one.  I manage to take two Hydrosophist books, but nothing else. All of the Necromancy and Summoner skillbooks that I want would be too ‘heavy’ for Sebille’s Thievery stat, and she runs off before I can lift some money.  Once I’ve had my fill of picking people’s pockets in Driftwood, I fast-travel back to the beach and take inventory of all my ill-gotten gains:  A magician’s coat, which… grants Huntsman and Finesse. I didn’t take good enough care to look at its stats before I lifted it. Bonuses like these are essentially worthless to me, and Lohse’s current chestpiece gives her more Huntsman anyway! Still, I can put it up for wares. It’s worth a decent amount.  The dagger, Stinger, does a fair amount more damage than her current Magical Dwarven Dagger and grants +1 Finesse, along with 10% chances to set Acid (removes all physical armour) and Blinded. The dwarven dagger has a slot for a rune and this one doesn’t, but it’s overall an upgrade. The rest of my goods include 640 bucks, and a bunch of new skills:  Arcane Stitch: Fully revitalize a single character. Removes Frozen, Stunned, Petrified, Plague, Suffocating, Poisoned, Burning, Necrofire, Terrified, Silenced, Taunted, and Mad. Healing Ritual: Fire a beam of light from your hands that will jump to nearby allies, healing everyone it touches. While it will prioritize allies, it can target undead enemies if there are no allies nearby to heal. Doesn’t heal any statuses. Spider Legs: Sprout an octuplet of spider legs from your back. While Spider Legs is active, you can create web surfaces that will Entangle any creature, friend or foe, and prevent them from moving. Walking on webbed surfaces with Spider Legs active will grant you Haste instead. Incompatible with Spread Your Wings. Laser Ray: Fire a fricken’ laser beam from your hands that incinerates any targets in a straight line from the caster, dealing massive Fire damage and leaving a trail of fire clouds (not smoke clouds) in its wake. Fire Whip: A long-ranged attack that targets a single enemy and hits them with a whip made of fire, dealing high Fire damage and guaranteeing to set both Burning and Blind for one turn (unless immune). I head back into town, and before I go to the Black Bull Tavern, I figure I might do some legitimate shopping. I mentioned… in the previous update, I think, that I don’t have anyone on Geomancy, and that Sebille has a ton of Memory available. While I don’t intend to spec her into Intelligence, it’s better to have moves like Fortify and Poison Dart than to not have them. That said, though, she currently doesn’t have any points in Geomancy to learn these skills anyway, so, that’ll be for the next level up. I buy her Fortify, Meld Metal, and Poison Dart and give them to her to hold onto until then.   We progress westward through the fishing village, heading past the town crier. Those stairs lead up to the Black Bull Tavern. Well, so does the pathway uphill, but that’s more meant to take you out of town.  It’s apparently the centerpiece of the town, if they’re willing to open their signposts welcoming travelers to their village with ‘home of the Black Bull Tavern.’  Just off the beaten path is this one dwarven woman, however. She looks a bit distraught: she’s futzing around with the tall grass like she’s looking for something.  : I haven’t seen anything like that ‘lying about,’ no. : Blast. It’s gone for good, I fear.: She rubs a hand over her smooth head, then suddenly looks up at you. Her great greenish-gold eyes are alive with worry. : Where should I start looking? Around this area, I presume?: Tears star her eyelashes and she begins to weep. She takes your hand.: I know, I know. What a crybaby I am. It’s just… you’re so kind. It’s been a difficult day. : That’s not a small amount of money. Is your master well-known in this village? They must be rather affluent, indeed.: Magister Reimond. He bade me take the coins to purchase supplies for his journey, but I dropped it along the way. He’s sure to think I stole it.: She tilts her head back and blinks back tears. : (Magister Reimond’s been gone for a little while, now. If this dwarven woman really is his servant, she should have known that. And Reimond wouldn’t have left if these supplies were at all valuable or necessary.): (Reimond also has enough authority here in Driftwood that nobody would dare ask questions if you said you were working on his behalf. I have a piece of paper that attests to that…): (And also, doesn’t Reimond hate dwarves?): I’ll… keep an eye out for this pouch of yours. I can’t make any promises but I’ll look for you if I find something.: She reaches out as thought to shake your hand but stumbles, falling a little bit into your arms. She laughs, embarrassed, and quickly rights herself.: *Ahem!* Terribly sorry. I’m not in my proper mind today, it seems. I’ll keep looking myself. Good day to you!Hold the gently caress up  Why is gold leaving my inventory Nah, there’s too much bullshittery in her story. The fact that she’s wearing a cowl in broad daylight doesn’t do much to help her image, either.  I’ll be taking those back, thank you very loving much.  And those gloves, too. I’ll be taking those. … drat, actually, those are nice gloves. +2 to Thievery? Hell yes, please. I’ll miss that +1 Finesse from my old gloves, but the Thievery bonus is… pretty absurd, now that I think about it. And extra movement is always welcome. She's carrying grapes and beer, too. She can keep those.  As soon as the conversation ends, she trots off towards the barracks before disappearing entirely. Tried to filch me. I can hardly believe it.  Finally, no more distractions: here we are. The Black Bull Tavern.  Well. Maybe just one more distraction. To the left of the main entrance to the Black Bull Tavern is an elf getting all flustered over some parchments and scrolls. He appears to be wearing Magister regalia – I don’t think we’ve ever seen an elven Magister before. Lots of elven Silent Monks, and a handful of lizard Magisters, but this is the first elven one. : An elf in tattered red robes shifts through pages of handwritten notes spread across the table. : So many suspects… so many potential culprits… I need to narrow down the list… think, you drat elf, think…: A floorboard creaks beneath your foot. The elf leaps around abruptly. : ‘The way things are?’ Do you mean the Voidwoken? If they made it into the town, it wouldn’t have been a surprise by now.: Haven’t you heard…? : I would have thought that Magisters… took better care of themselves. : If the Magisters would remove someone clearly as loyal as you over something you had no control over, then maybe this is an opportunity to start a new life, apart from an organization that could be so cruel.: The Magisters are all I know, all I want! I turned my back on everything else when I joined them – my name, my blood, my history… if I’m not one of them, I’m nothing. : You seem adamant. What makes you so certain? : If you’re so certain, then perhaps you should allay your convictions to the investigating Magisters. : So I suppose you intend to solve the crime yourself, then.: The elf nods stoically.: Exactly. I’m convinced that this tavern holds the key – it’s full of scum and degenerates; the true culprit could easily hide amongst them. : You know, you may consider the Magisters to be some kind of family towards you, but they clearly don’t feel the same way. You offered yourself to them and they returned that generosity by removing you – dishonourably, by the looks of it – over your blood. If anything, you continuing to push the investigation yourself might make you suspicious to them. You don’t owe them anything.: What?! I serve with utter loyalty, now and forever! Now get away from me, and don’t come back unless you have information I can use!This conversation opened up a new quest in my log and netted me 1,000 EXP, so it was a good diversion. We already had a quest on the missing Magisters and locating a man named Higba, and now we have an alternate way of finishing it: if and when we find more information, we can either go to the barracks with it and get a heftier reward, or we can bring it to Stewart here and give him a chance to get back into the Magister’s good graces. Which would mean one more Magister in their ranks, mind.  No more distractions. For real this time. : The Black BullThe Black Bull Tavern has some of the most famous and well-received music in the OST, so if you normally skip over these songs while reading, I suggest you don’t pass these ones up. : Keep your eyes peeled, would you? Brahmos the Wanderer promised he’d be here…Oh, I don’t recall that message being a thing, that Brahmos would specifically be in the Black Bull Tavern. Well, one more reason to investigate this place – add it to the pile.  To our right, as soon as we enter the tavern, is a dwarven bard reciting poems that he invents on the spot about the recent goings-on.  : Weep, my friends, for Alexander the Innocent… killed by Sourcerers, a most vile incident. A valiant warrior against the Void, taken too early, all hope destroyed. The path thus ended, the conclusion of a noble bloodline. Who shall rise? Who gains the title most divine? We wait, we wander and wonder, seeking signs from the gods… May the Seven usher us to paradise, against all the odds!Impressive, if he really made that up on the spot, but, eh, I can’t say I’m a big fan of a poem about a guy that rounded up innocent people and then turned them into zombie slaves using technology invented by an insane self-made king. : You have interrupted my newest masterpiece!: The bard clears his throat and gargles on his own saliva. He then returns to his poem, but his voice cracks mid-verse.: Hmm. Well, never you mind. Every sonnet I compose is a masterpiece, and my muse has been begging me to write something new. : A rhyme, in exchange for a bit of coin? That seems impractical. What use is a poem to me? It’s a pretty minor thing to vote on, but I figure that it’d be nice to include the thread’s opinion on matters when I can. Do we want Barstan Tungs to recite a poem about us? And if so, should it be on our heroism, or on our… true nature?  The tavern is full of people, but about half of them are just two-lines-or-less filler about drunken people talking about the latest goings-on. This elven lady in particular, though, looks she has a story to tell. She’s got eight mugs in front of her and at least one of them is still full. : An elf sways on her chair, her eyes focused on the counter in front of her, where she has six glasses in a row. With the nails of two fingers, she’s pressed red welts into her forearm. She slides one of the drinks toward you, her head bobbling heavily on her neck as she nods at the sparkling ale. : … You seem… out-of-sorts. Perhaps you’ve had enough? : (Maybe I can try to appease her rather than reason with her.): The drink has barely any effect on you, bar a coldness in your rib-cage and a wetness in your seat. : *Gulp!* Nothin’ like a glass of the good stuff to smudge everything into a pretty shape.: She slides another glass of ale toward you. Its contents sparkle in the dim barlight. : Any particular reason why you’re trying to drown your own thoughts tonight? : (Maybe she just wants a drinking buddy. Ifan enjoyed it when I humoured him that one time.): *Burp!* Cheers to you, me, and… and…: Her gaze swivels around the room.: Damian’s dull knife, this place is horrible. Never mind. Cheers to you, me, and me again! : I’m not an expert on mor – I mean, elven healthcare, but one look at your face tells me that even you’re worried that you’re pushing yourself too far.: You’re about seven or eight drinks deep. That’s an incredible amount for anyone. I think it’s time for you to stop. : That face and those welts tell me that you’ve been through a little bit recently. You can’t tell a good story when you’re passed out drunk, or worse, can you?: Persuasion Success!: She dumps a heavy arm around your shoulder and pulls you in close, her breath hot and sour in your face.: Look it, look it, look it this. This. Ss. This is my story.: She shows you the two swollen, angry-red welts on the underside of her arm. She slaps them without finesse, making herself wince, and stares at you intensely. : What is it you’re even trying to fix? : (I don’t know how much I should be trusting the word of a woman as deep in the booze as her, but… well… if there’s any ‘remedy’ to ‘not being right,’ I’d love to hear it.): Alright, sure. You have my attention.: There’s a… see there’s this… woman… I’m not crazy! And if she kisses you, she can change you. : ‘Different’ how?: I don’t know how to s-say it. I just feel it. I changed the right way. And then, and then, I mean I think now I’ll be fine. : It’s been… a long time since I’ve felt ‘fine.’ So, I understand. Sometimes, you just want a moment to feel at peace.: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yup. You ought to go s-see her. Dorotya. She can help – help! She can help you.: She looks at you earnestly, her eyes gleaming, the twinkle of the amber ale behind them.: I seem good, don’t I? Yeah, I do.Hmm. According to this drunk elf, there’s a woman in the basement of the tavern that, when she kisses you, she can make you feel ‘fine.’ Fine enough, supposedly, to give you the strength to drink your body weight in alcohol and not pass out, much less die from poisoning. There’s already quite a lot to this tavern to investigate, so, once again, just threw ‘er on the pile. I’ll be heading downstairs soon enough anyway.  There’s an older woman wearing barmaid’s clothing tending to the counter. If there’s any one person in a tavern to speak with on recent happenings and rumours, it’s the one running the bar. : A prim woman in a starched apron wipes a glass with a clean rag. She pins you with blue, steel-sharp eyes as you approach the bar. : (That’s not a typical greeting in modern vernacular, and she’s expecting some kind of response. Uh… better stick to what I know.): Yes, and hello! It’s nice to meet you as well! : (Uh… well, it’s an older conversational passage, but Plan A didn’t work, so…): And his seven blessings up us undeserving…?: The soft lines of her face fold into a warm smile. She sets the glass on the counter and pours you a generous portion of an amber liquor. : (Kniles? I know one person named Kniles, and we… did not get along. I should pry for more information before jumping to conclusions, though – maybe Kniles is a common name in this age.): I’ve escaped Fort Joy and my journey’s brought me here. : (Great.) I may have met this Kniles person before. About as tall as I am; long, flowing blonde hair; a bit of wide-but-crushed nose…? Oh boy. Kniles the Flenser was a miniboss we fought in the Fort Joy dungeons: he had a ‘playground’ filled with blood and flayed and skinned bodies that he had animated to help fight us. We pulled his face-ripper from his corpse, and, if I remember correctly, we currently have his face in our pocket. This woman, Prudence, is claiming to be his mother and she seems very proud of who he is and what he was doing. Kniles probably hid his sadistic tendencies from his family and kept up a clean image as a ‘physician’ to the people he wanted to keep his true nature from. What do YOU think? Do we tell Prudence about Kniles the Flenser’s true nature? Do we lie and say he was a good man? Or do we tell her that we killed him? Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Dec 21, 2021 |
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Dec 21, 2021 11:22
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While we stir on that, if we talk with her again, we can ask her about the missing Magisters that Stewart is convinced that the tavern has some part of. : There have been a string of Magister disappearances lately, and I was brought on to help investigate. One of my leads brought me to this tavern. Would you know anything about it? : And where did you hear that? That disgraced elf who’s been loitering outside my establishment since he was rightfully removed from his position? If I were you, I wouldn’t pay any heed to the ramblings of that fool.Prudence says that Stewart is wrong and that he’s just a desperate, rambling man that’s trying to get back into the Order by throwing the tavern under the bus. If the tavern really is the site of the missing Magisters, it’s unlikely that Prudence is trying to cover for it – her son Kniles is a Magister and she thinks very highly of what he’s doing in life, so she likely thinks highly of the Order as well and wouldn’t perpetrate such a crime, or, at the very least, she’d be the first to report it if she knew. Unless, of course, she’s as twisted as Kniles is. She also says that Stewart was ‘rightfully removed’ from the Order, which implies that either Stewart isn’t entirely on the up-and-up himself – or (and perhaps the more likely reason, honestly), she’s racist towards elves. Either way, I’m not getting more out of her on this issue just yet. While we consider those remarks, let’s talk to –  … A wandering ghost. Who know… typical tavern fare. No tavern in any RPG is complete without an apparition haunting it. Just ask Baldur’s Gate. What’s especially interesting, though, is that this ghost is a Magister, based on her clothing… : The spirit of a Magister stares dumbly at her translucent hand – the fingers of which have been sheared off… : Ghosts usually only linger when they have unfinished business… or their passing was particularly troublesome. What happened to you?: The spirit pivots her wrist, staring at the fingerless hand; utterly, morbidly entranced. : Who? Who attacked you first?: The spirit stares, absorbing your question. Finally, she points her fingerless hand… : How long ago was this? It must have been recent.: The spirit’s lips part, trying to form an answer… : There’s been a number of Magisters having gone missing lately, and at least one of the investigators believes this tavern has something to do with it. Are you one of the victims?: The spirit looks at you with the smallest flicker of realisation. : Nobody’s found any body from the missing Magisters. Can you tell me where yours might be?: The spirit ponders your question, and seems to… shiver. : One final question – who did it? Who killed you?: The spirit inclines her head towards the kitchen.Okay, well, that’s pretty open-and-shut. We’ve been tasked with finding some missing Magisters; we found the ghost of one of them; and she’s implicating the tavern’s cook. She said that her body is in ‘a hundred moving graves, warm and wet,’ implying that her body’s been hacked apart and eaten. Which seems like a really dangerous move on the chef’s part. All it would take is one elf to eat whatever food has a Magister’s body part and they’d know everything there is about this plot.  Behind the bar is the tavern’s strongbox, probably holding all of the profits of the day. The Black Bull Tavern is apparently famous, at least on this side of Rivellon, enough for it to be the highlight of the town, so this box likely holds a fair amount of coin in it. Unfortunately for me, I don’t have any lockpicks on me. I’ll have to, eh, help myself next time.  Hey, speaking of elves in the tavern, here’s one. He’s tucked away in the corner of the room, and he doesn’t have any food in front of him; just some tankards of ale. He’s also got a fair amount of HP and armour, meaning he’s probably not a friendly face. I should say hello! Maybe we can be friends anyway.  : Ah! Finally. Your colleague over there is absolutely useless. : I’m afraid I’m not on the payroll here.: Oh. Pity. I’ve been trying to get a little something to eat all day, but the giggle-heads who run this establishment don’t seem to be willing to provide a fellow with his fair portion.: And after all I’ve been through, too… : Fine, I’ll take the bait. What have you ‘been through?’: His lip trembles dramatically.: It’s my mentor. My dear mentor. He was… *sniff* killed. By those Void beasts. I told him we ought not to travel in the hills, but would he listen? No. How here I sit. My closest companion: gone. Our precious cargo, worth more than Lucian’s right ring: lost to the beast-infested wilds. : Missing cargo, you said? I may have business out west; perhaps I could keep an eye out if you tell me more.: Ah! Then perhaps my luck has changed. Yes, perhaps this awful business might soon be behind me… : I don’t exactly go hunting for the beasts, but I can handle them when they cross me.: Ah! Terrific news. Then what I ask will be little more than a trifling. My mentor – Liam – and I were hauling in a goodly number of fine wares from the southlands when we crossed paths with a great brute of a Voidwoken. : You’re asking me to wander the plains in search of a cargo that may be defended by a large Voidwoken, and then to haul it all back here. This isn’t a small task. How do you intend to compensate me and my party?: Very, very well – that’s how. That cargo is worth more than a pretty penny, and I’ll owe its retrieval to you and you alone. Now, give me your map. I’ll show you just where to look. I doubt those beasts out there have any use of such a cargo.: I can’t tell you how thoroughly you’ve made my day. Good luck!The fact that this guy isn’t being fed the house stew may have answered my previous question: the chef knows that Garvan is an elf, and that the stew likely has chunks of human meat in it, and as soon as he eats the stew, he’ll realize that the chef is behind the Magister disappearances. So they’re just not serving him. Talking to Garvan gave me a new quest, and with it, a load of 2,000 EXP. More stuff to do keeps piling up and up! Act Two is the largest act in the game for a reason.  Wandering the floor of the tavern is this guy, Lovrik, tending to the patrons of the bar and repeatedly asking if there’s anything he can do for them. And when he isn’t being a good waiter, he has a broom in his hand, idly sweeping the floor. If Prudence, the tavern proprietor, has some good information to share, then maybe the barmaid Lovrik has some tidbits to share as well. : He fixes you with a stare. Looks you up and down. Weighs you up. The cut of your cloth, the weight of your bag. A moment passes…: … then a smile creases his face. A smile carefully constructed to look friendly and authentic. A smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. : Not that it’ll do me much good, but… sure. I’ll take some stew. : A bold choice, on the face of it, unless you’re looking for something a little more tantalising than a meaty stew and a mildly alcoholic brew.: He raises an eyebrow and gives you a sly look. His bartering screen opens up to give us a selection of his goods. He’s carrying an obscene amount of money – way, way too much for a barmaid to be holding – along with alcohol and food, including an entire fully-cooked pizza in his pocket. Also, tea, orange juice, and water. Remember to drink water with your alcohol to keep from getting hung over! The stew he’s carrying is specifically called ‘meaty stew.’ I didn’t think to do it when I recorded, but I should try giving it to Sebille and see if she learns anything specific.  : Going by that offhand comment you made earlier, it sounds like you have ‘bolder’ options available, if someone’s willing to pay for it. : Okay, enough with the coyness. Just come out with it.: Persuasion Success!: A lascivious smile spreads across his face. His tongue darts from his mouth to lick the spittle from his lips. : Uhh… across the modern world? Because, well… I consider myself a learned man, and that’s one topic that I, uh… A pimp moonlighting as a barmaid isn’t exactly a common combination. : That’s a lot of gold to spend for… uh, knowledge! Yes, knowledge. I could, erm, go to a library for cheaper. : The money vanishes into his apron. We’re coming to one of the more infamous moments in the Black Bull Tavern: the opportunity to, well, experience a lizard courtesan. Lizards have an in-world reputation for being fantastic lovers. We’re also being given the option to select whether we want a male escort or a female one. There are two options to this one. What do YOU think? Do we want thick and bold ‘stew’, or do we want soft and subtle ‘stew?’ Also, which of our party members should get to eat it? This is a quest worth a fair amount of experience and rewards, so, yes, it’s sort of important. It also usually isn’t even the first time the game brings up sex as a world-building tool or a persuasion check (remember Redeka the Witch in the blood rose cave), and, forewarning, it won’t be the last.  While we stew on that, lmao, gottem, it’s time to confront the tavern’s chef. While Lovrik was using stew as a subtext for his pimping, the Black Bull Tavern’s literal meat stew is nonetheless somewhat in high demand: Garvan the elf wanted a bowl of it; Prudence the proprietor offered it; and Lovrik was carrying four full bowls in his pocket. It’s time to find out what the secret ingredient is.  The chef of the Black Bull Tavern is another elf, a woman. Like Garvan, she has a high amount of constitution and a handful of armour, so there’s a decent chance that we have our murderer. The kitchen itself is fairly clean and non-suspect. There’s no blood on the floors or the tables or anything; I wouldn’t immediately guess from the looks of things that this could be a crime scene from the outset.  : The cook acknowledges you with a small bow – an oddly formal gesture given the surroundings. : Sorry, it’s just… I smelt the cooking from just outside, and I couldn’t help but want to follow it here. It’s delightful. : Ah, the stew… it’s much in demand. You should speak to Lovrik if you want some. Investigating the rest of the kitchen, Sebille’s high Wits stat lets her find a loose plank in the floorboards in what I assume is a large pantry.  Searching the floorboards gives me a fair chunk of money… and a ring bearing a Magister’s seal. Harrick the Ghost was moaning about her missing ring, and she was a Magister – it’s likely that this is hers. : This ring… it bears the Magister seal. And there’s blood on it!Granted, this is circumstantial evidence, but it’s more than enough to start asking Wyvlia the cook some uncomfortable questions. There is no good answer to ‘why is a bloody Magister ring underneath the floorboards to your kitchen?’  : I spoke with Magister Harrick recently. Rather recently. She seemed pretty upset over her current state.: A ghost? Peddle your children’s tales elsewhere – I have work to do.Well, to be fair, I shouldn’t have expected that to work. Let’s try the ring.  : She grabs the ring and glares at you like a rattlesnake observing its next live meal. : Far be it from me to bemoan the loss of more Magisters in the world, but… why would you do this? You’re not a Sourcerer.: She gives you a defiant look. This is our last vote of this update. Magisters are a bit of a mixed bag: most of the rank-and-file are just as scared of the Voidwoken as anyone else and they’re desperate to stave them off, even if it means committing atrocities. Going by Harrick’s ghostly robes, she was a step up from a city guardswoman, but at the end of the day, that’s what most of them are, excluding lunatics like Reimond: they’re just guards, trying to protect their home. And if nothing else, they don’t deserve to be diced into cutlets and served to bar patrons just trying to get a good lunch – that’s pretty hosed up. (It’s ok when Sebille does it tho) On the other hand, Magisters are not our friends. Their entire operation revolves around them rounding up Sourcerers, dehumanizing them, sending them to a death camp, and then turning them into zombies. It’s run by evil men and women doing evil things and while fear is what motivates the grunts to do all the atrocities, that’s also not an excuse for their weaknesses of character, and they should know that committing genocide is not the answer. What Wyvlia probably thinks that she’s doing is that she’s removing evil from the world, and while her methods, well, just aren’t morally right, there’s an argument in favour of her reasoning. What do YOU think? Do we take the ring to Stewart? Do we take the ring to Carver, the Magister in the barracks? Do we deal with Wyvlia ourselves? Or do we let her go free?  There’s one last thing to do with this update. In the back corner of the tavern is a stairway to the basement, presumably where the place keeps its kegs and caskets of rum. But there’s also a dwarven guardsman sitting at the top of the stairs, and he’s decked with weapons and armour – too much to be just a doorman. There’s a whole lot more – a whole lot more – to the Black Bull Tavern than Prudence is letting on, and she knows it. We have reason to believe that they’re keeping a Voidwoken in here somewhere, and the basement seems the best place to hold it. And if I remember right, there’s suspicions that Lohar, the dwarf trying to run a revolution, is making this bar his headquarters as well. And we were just told that there’s a really good kisser downstairs as well? Something to that effect.  : This tavern is already awash with secrets and mysteries. What could possibly be down in the cellar? : I have a habit of finding trouble and wanting to correct it. Everything from helping a chicken finds it missing eggs to saving the world from the encroaching darkness. : Mmm hmmmm.: It’s already mad as a bag of cats down there, and I’ve no intention of flinging another mangy yowler in there. Scoot.There are a number of ways to approach Papa Thrash and gain access to the basement. Most of the dialogue options he gives you are dead ends, and if you persist too much, you’ll get into a fight with him. However, he can be bribed to let you in, and if you get into a fight with him, he’ll actually let you go if you get his HP down low enough. That said, though, I couldn’t seem to get him to concede whenever we fought – I think that the Divinity: Unleashed mod is messing with Papa Thrash’s flags, since it really messes with HP and armour. Namely, armour, by the mod’s design, never depletes, and I think the game might be searching for that as one of the conditions. Anyway, two other methods to get into the basement involving either having Ifan in your group, or some other character with the Outlaw tag. Which we happen to have.  : … And these are my associates.: He grabs your hand eagerly and laughs as you execute the finicky ending manoeuvre with much panache. : You’re the right sort for downstairs and make no mistake! On you go, on in!The primary reason why we want to keep Papa Thrash alive is because he’s a trader. The only one in Driftwood that sells Scoundrel skillbooks. Scoundrel peddlers tend to be a little trickier to find because, well, if they’re a Scoundrel, they’re probably not on the up-and-up. Once you’re allowed in once, you’re allowed in forever.  There are a small number of skillbooks that I’d like, but I’m also not very liquid with cash right now. And he’s selling a unique chestplate called Racht Muvora that would go incredibly well on Sebille, and it’s even halfway affordable, but it’d mean breaking up her Tyrant Captain set. At the very least, I buy every lockpick that Thrash has. You can never have too many of those.  I’ll just have to resort to other ‘methods of payment,’ utilizing my discount as much as possible. Surely Thrash would appreciate a good show of dexterity from a fellow thief.   I help myself to a handful of goodies and then fast travel out of there before he reveals that, no, he really does not appreciate being pickpocketed. My gains include 1,619 gold; the Racht Muvora chestpiece (which I don’t equip just yet – I might as well get a better hat and better boots before swapping out, to make the most of her Tyrant Captain’s set); a handful of Scoundrel skillbooks; and a Legendary belt called True Twine that gives +2 Retribution, +1 Perseverance, and +7% dodging. I put the belt on Lohse, who’s been using Withermoore’s Girdle, which is really showing its age. Withermoore’s Girdle gives +1 Memory, which hurts to lose, but she’s got enough Memory to last for a little while, and True Twine is overall much better.  Gag Order: Deal modest Air damage and set Silenced for one turn. Sleeping Arms: Deal modest physical damage and set Atrophied for two turns. Corrupted Blade: Deal high physical damage and sets Decay and Diseased for two turns. Costs three AP.Sebille already has an easy time locking down targets with Chloroform and Ruptured Chicken. Giving her a second method to apply Atrophied and one method to apply Silenced will make her even better at what she does: controlling the battlefield and dictating when enemies are allowed to do what. Okay! That’s the end of this update. As a recap, here are all the votes for next time: Do we want Barstan Tungs to recite a poem about us? And if so, should it be on our heroism, or on our… true nature? Do we tell Prudence about Kniles the Flenser’s true nature? Do we lie and say he was a good man? Or do we tell her that we killed him? Do we want thick and bold ‘stew’, or do we want soft and subtle ‘stew?’ Also, which of our party members should get to eat it? Do we take the ring to Stewart? Do we take the ring to Carver, the Magister in the barracks? Do we deal with Wyvlia ourselves? Or do we let Wyvlia the elf go free? Let me know by three days’ time! Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Dec 21, 2021 |
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Dec 21, 2021 11:22
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Let's have an undead song Tell her that he's a sadistic torturer Lohse should get a bold stew. She deserves it after dealing with a demon infestation And let the cook go
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Dec 21, 2021 13:47
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Slaan posted:Let's have an undead song agreed with all of this, also deal with Wyvlia ourselves. Dead Magisters are fine but feeding them to people without consent is not.
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Dec 21, 2021 18:54
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If the world can't understand the beauty of undead supremacy, then the world doesn't deserve to be saved by one. Recite our true nature, good bard! Kniles the Flenser was a psychopath but I think it's worse to go around pissing off bartenders without proof. Tell his mom he was a good man. She doesn't need to know that by "good" we mean "good target practice." Give Sebille the bold stuff! Maybe she can tell us what the animals were thinking when they got chopped up. Deal with Wyvlia ourselves, and take the ring to Carver ourselves. Firstly, feeding random folks people-pies like you're Sweeney Todd is not cool, and who knows if the Magister backup will even deal with her properly. Secondly, why should Stewart get the credit? All cops are bastards, and even moreso when they're trying to get back in the ranks.
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Dec 21, 2021 19:48
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Let's get a rocking song about being undead, possibly birthing the heavy metal genre. Sure, tell prudence her son sucked. Godly folks wouldn't approve of lying. I think Fane should get the stew, and pick the "surprise me" option. I'd let the chef go. Good meat can be hard to come by. Can you give the ring to the ghost?
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Dec 22, 2021 22:32
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Schwartzcough posted:I'd let the chef go. Good meat can be hard to come by. Can you give the ring to the ghost? No, but once I return the ring to somebody, I can go back and tell her and that'll put her to rest, according to the wiki.
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Dec 23, 2021 09:33
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Vote's over, but we're tied in what to do with Wyvlia. First person to say to either let her go or deal with her ourselves will seal the elf cook's fate.
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Dec 24, 2021 17:31
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Deal with Wylia ourselves. Dead people in the food, that's a case by case basis, but using dead Magister in particular, that's an universally terrible ingredient.
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Dec 24, 2021 17:39
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