All In, Enderal [Travelogue of Skyrim Total Conversion Mod, Enderal]

[Guile]

- Oh hey, so, remember that hideous Oorbaya monster? Which, by the way, I feel like every time I summon it is more horrible than I ever imagined. Note the way it simultaneously has not enough hands and way too many:

Spoiler: bleeaagh

Guess where those come from? A loading screen is so helpful as to tell me:
The Oorbaya, or 'Blue Death', is what happens when a mage fails to control his arcane fever.
Since mages in this mod make magic by taking phenomena from some other world and expressing it in this one (some world where Constantine's beard is on fire, remember), the Oorbaya is presumably… trapped between worlds so to speak, constantly expressing this interdimensional magic through its own flesh? Summoning in more and more magic – unable to stop – and expressing it out as phenomena (the hands grasping hands grasping hands and the purple explosions)

- So to take my mind off the horror of my own character's existence, let's think about how to get to that spaceship.
The crashed spaceship is up at the ass end of the world. I honestly have no idea how to get through the nearly impassable mountains so I just fly a Myrad as far north as possible, then start heading northwest and hope for the best.

- I work my way through the pink crystal forest, and discover that the Great Snowy North is hardcore.
Just north of the crystal forest I run into a pair of mages and three elemental wolves living harmoniously together. It's kind of neat that unlike basically everything else in this game, mages run away to their maximum distance to start flicking icicles or fireballs or whatever at you. Combine that with some dangerous in-fighters like elemental wolves, and you're in for a bad time.
Once I manage to kill them, I unfortunately find mountains in my way, and have to keep going around. So that was pretty much pointless.

- I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out the purpose of the ancient buildings on the plateau, though. Something like a Stonehenge-like plinth with a cyclopean lintel, and then these huge professionally-made arches with regular brick sizes heading up into the hills… half an aqueduct maybe? Some device that in better times helped people make it over the mountain like a dry Panama canal? But then what is up with that pillar with the stone arms holding up a spiky piece of rock?

Spoiler: spent way too long trying to figure out the purpose of this thing

Enough amateur anthropology, I have stuff to do.

- This picture encompasses what the Great White North is like, for me:

Spoiler: pictured: life on enderal

You think, oh, you're level 32. You're a tough guy. Right? You can handle the North.
Wrong.
The wolves and the four-tusked mammoths are okay, but pretty much everything else up here will destroy me in one or two hits.
Snow bear: two swipes.
Frost troll: one swing.
Vatyr: three or four punches, but there's no escaping them, even on brave Whirlwind the donkey.
The giant spiders will reach out and brush you with one hairy leg as you ride by, and instantly kill you right off the back of your horse.
But – and this is the important bit – none of these deadly monsters can see much further than the nose in front of their face.

- It produces an interesting semi-tactical rogue-like element.
"Okay, so this is where the snow bear is. Go around. Work your way up the mountain. Not that way; that's where the spiders are. There's a mammoth; you can kill mammoths…"
I feel like my elemental wolf is working with me on this ever since I came to the North, although I think it's actually part of the AI behavior for near-death fleeing. It'll get up in some monster's face, take one hit, and then run the fuck away at full speed. The monster will chase after it, letting me run in the opposite direction or take potshots at it with my bow (and hopefully actually hit it sometimes, but it's hard to lead the right amount on this thing)

- So basically the map takes you all the way around the northwestern tip of the map to get to the spaceship. I get some vistas that would probably be pretty amazing if it wasn't constantly overcast and snowing:

Spoiler: up on the mountain, I see down below

I kind of wanted to work my way down to that ship to see if some poor bastard from Nehrim managed to land in this frozen hellhole, but I'm stuck way up on the mountain and that sounded like a pain in the butt.
The music, at least, is very atmospheric. Quiet, almost fragile piano notes disappearing into the quiet snow.
The snow in this metaphor is hiding killer snow bears, but you know, that's Enderal for you.

- There's some pretty cool set pieces in the Great North.
- A single, lonely home at the end of the world. A warhammer, a skeleton and a book on Master Rhetorics, half-buried along with their house in an avalanche.
- Two mages and their frost elementals in a tower. The top of the tower is a warm, inviting spot with a stew on the fire and a pair of bedrolls across from one another, beating back the frozen night. I, of course, was welcomed with a rain of icicles.
- Further up the mountain from them, the last Homely House. Well, it actually reads something about Deep Diggers, and a bunch of killer Vatyr are living there now. My strategy here involves opening the door, murdering something really fast with a double power attack using my bound swords, and then closing the door and running away to gnaw on crusty Endralean bread to regenerate health.
- Even further beyond that is the Deep Digger Settlement. A whole town, with water wheels and… stuff. This seems to be the very top of the mountain, and the undead here are commensurately the 'ardest motherfuckers I've ever run across.

- I heroically meet the gatekeeper – a Grotesque Lost One too high-level to enslave with my entropy talent – in honorable battle, while he's trapped in a narrow passage:

Spoiler: pictured: heroics

I manage to kill a few more of the beasties, but there's nothing much to scavenge. I manage to score an Ice Elemental II spell (level 36) from one of the houses, which makes up for the lack of material loot. When going downstairs saw my new towering, majestically-glowing frost elemental pop in one hit from a Lord of Lost Ones like a balloon, I decided I'd had enough and headed back towards Agnod at top speed.
I'd gone right past it because this tip of the mountain stuff was pretty interesting.


The Takeaway:
Wasn't I supposed to be looking for a spaceship?

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

Hmm... So the Oorbaya is your potential fate? Interesting. I love the hands detail.

I could be wrong but that little stone archway thing that has you puzzled? I think it's a roof support. I think there used to be a wooden roof over part of the structure and that supported one end. Stone ruins are often parts of buildings that were mixed stone and wood with all the wood rotted away. I could be totally wrong of course, but it just looks like the caps you see on balconies in some of the elder scrolls buildings.

 

[Guile]

- Turns out I was still in the wrong location, and I had to get off the mountain entirely before I could find Agnod.
Some of these attempts were better than others.

Spoiler: pictured: man's dream of flight

- Agnod's design is pretty cool. It's half buried in the snow at a weird angle, so you have to do a bunch of platforming up pipes (that look suspiciously like the completed Agnod had spider legs) just to get inside.

Spoiler: not pictured: the 8 tries it took to climb up here

It was a bit odd that if you stand on Agnod and look at the path it cut into the mountain it seemed to smash in and then turn left. Maybe it was trying to turn around?
It would've been pretty neat to be able to look out and see the hole where the great work of seven decades of starling ingenuity had torn through the world on the way down, that's all I'm saying.

- Inside, the ground is very uneven. The hull is cracked places, burying parts of entire rooms in snow and what's left is covered in icicles. There's a mix of gold hull plating, red emergency lighting, light reflecting off snow and ice and even water. Lots of great set design here, lots of variety.

Spoiler: Nice set design

Although it's also very dark in parts. I'm very glad I finally figured out I could buy a magelight to free up a hand for double swording. It cuts out every two minutes, which is very inconvenient if I'm left trying to battle a horde of mechanical spiders in the dark, but still worthwhile.
There's even sections where machines still pump and run and a reddish steam hisses and broils out of still-active ship parts. Agnod's heart still beats.

- The locals are very, very active, thanks for nothing Pahtira. Mechanical spiders, dwarf balls (I mean sphere guardians, yeah) and centurion giants are the order of the day.
It's actually the dwarf balls that present the most difficulty.
Centurions are lumbering giants that I can kite around pinging arrows off their chassis all day until I dent them enough to fall over.
Mechanical spiders are weak enough to hit with Entropic Blood, which gives me another (debatably) warm body between me and my enemies; plus they naturally explode in purple lightning when they die, which means that they explode twice when I hit them with Entropic Blood. It's like fireworks.
Dwarf balls are fast, stabby, and too high level to take over with my talent. They hang out in ball form when not angered by intruders, so I found myself walking by them all the time only to get a sword in the back. Then I found myself shooting every vaguely ball-shaped thing just in case; a lot of urns and pots were irreparably damaged in their name.

- I do start to wonder after a while where all the starlings are. Surely this was a crewed spaceship? There's not even a skeleton to be found, just endless rooms of starling-tech monsters. There's one up in the cockpit called The Navigator, even.
Then I start to wonder… see, when mechanical spiders explode on death, they spray out chunks of that starling gold metal and burned-looking soul gem bits, but also what looks like chunks of meat.
The dwarf balls splinter into bits without any such gory mess, but the top humanoid half stays mostly intact… and the centurions just fall over, fully intact. Fully humanoid, if gigantic in size.
Was Agnod crewed only by these mechanical horrors to begin with, or did the starlings do this to themselves?
Did it happen before the maiden voyage, a sacrifice of the individual in the name of the glorious starling master race, each starling crew member carefully closing themselves up in shells of unfeeling metal, Cybermen style? Or did it happen after, when their ship was hulled and they were stranded on the roof of the world with a bunch of deadly snow bears outside and no help coming?
Do sphere guardians bleed soylent green?

- I'll spare you the horrors of the dozens of careful battles, the hundreds of mechanical spiders, dwarf balls and centurions slain, and the dozens of my own gruesome deaths at their hands (and blades, and spider-tips).
It's a lot, because Agnod is a goddamn labyrinth. Worker's barracks, engine rooms, cockpit, generator room, etcetera. I actually popped open a couple of master-class doors with my two Ondusi's Master Scroll of Lockpicking that were supposed to expedite the whole process, but then I got lost and ended up wandering backwards through a bunch of content anyway.

- I almost have to admire how SureAI managed to cram in a spider section behind one of the master-locked doors. It's like the ship got torn open in the middle and the little blighters get in anywhere there's a spare space for them.
The pure blue-white is a welcome break in the color palette, at least.

Spoiler: SureAI likes their giant spiders

Well, there's a couple dozen corpses in here, though they're all wearing shit hauberks and iron swords instead of starling tech. Where the heck did they come from? If they're adventurers that are dying in droves to the defenses and the spiders are dragging them back to their lair, who would brave the Great White North with an iron sword? Just how many hapless fools have Yerai and Pahtira sent here to die because they wanted a trinket?
It's also possible these are the starlings; in the barracks section there's a couple of iron cages. It's possible they were keeping the killer spiders as pets for some ineffable reason, and they got out either immediately before or after the crash. And then dined on succulent starling flesh, because who the hell keeps man-eating spiders as pets.
We'll never know for sure, probably, because there's a distinct lack of audio logs or helpful notes about the place.

- After far, far too long, I find Pahtira in the generator room.
I kind of wonder how she managed that feat; at least Jespar is a spy kinda guy, it sort of makes sense that he'd make it through a dungeon and meet me at the end.
Do the defenses not target starlings? Is that it? Am I the victim of racism?
She has a cute little line where I go 'Why the hell were the defenses still on?!' and she goes 'What, I did turn them off! I mean, a lot of them. If you had to go through it with all the defenses on, you'd be dead. You should be grateful.'
Not feeling tremendously grateful, but that's probably just all the deaths talking.

- She has me open a few valves that honestly feels like busywork. Why am I even here?
Pahtira has me go down and grab the core, when of course the defenses turn back on and fry me like bacon.

Spoiler: my approaching doom is pretty

I needed to be here to get me out of the way, of course.
Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal, Pahtira! Also, curse cutscene defeats.
Pahtira monologues like a Saturday morning cartoon villain as I haze in and out of consciousness, about how Yerai isn't using the centurion right and if she gets to be the glorious golden god-king she'll bring the starlings back to their former glory and so on and so forth.
I wonder if she expects to just show up in a centurion suit and be handed the keys to the kingdom? I dunno, maybe that's how things work with starlings; the blingiest contender gets the crown.

- Now, on the one hand, I appreciate that she understands that I am a dangerous enemy to make, hence turning on what looked like a tiny contained black hole when I stuck my hand into the engine to get the power core.
On the other hand, you guys and I all know this isn't going to end well for her, because I am already dead, bitch.

- So there's what might be a thrilling escape from the ship as the glacier melts and the water levels rise (I'm not sure how that happened with the power core gone, but whatever), except it's not.
There's no heart pumping music, and there's no danger: you just tread water for a few slow minutes until the flood levels rise enough to get in the elevator, and then you head back through the still-dry ship to outside.
This would probably work much better on someone who died when you trick them into sticking their hand into a localized black hole.

- Boy is Pahtira going to be surprised in a minute when I teleport back to Ark.

- I bust in with Yerai shouting, 'What are you doing Pahtira? This is madness!' to the Pahtira-centurion. Oh sure, when you want to stick yourself in a giant robot it's a great idea, but when she wants to do it it's some kind of madness! Typical man.
No but seriously, you're both fucking lunatics.

- Actually, she mostly sounds sulky from inside Horst when I burst in. 'Oh great, I knew I shouldn't have waited', that kind of thing.
Yerai notices me and goes, 'Guile, watch out! Pahtira has taken over Horst!' like I'm some rube who has no idea what's going on and needs explanations.

Spoiler: this is the happiest I've ever heard Pahtira

That's some quality sass, Giant Robot Pahtira.
So I lead her around the room in her big stompy centurion body while Yerai goes to hide in a corner. Centurion fights continue to be a joke to anybody with a bow, so there's no tension at all. Horst is bigger than the average centurion, and he's got a lot of HP, but that's all.
Ping ping pingpingpingping repeat until dead.
Pahtira died as she lived; spouting cliched villain dialogue: "No, but that's– impossible–"

- Actually, turns out Pahtira's consciousness is 'inactive', not 'offline' per se. Yerai can transfer it into something else – he jokes about always wanting a talking paperweight.
I'm gonna be honest, The Adventures of Yerai and Pahtira the Talking Paperweight would be pretty awesome.


The Takeaway:
So that quest had some good bits, but the funny talking bits were spread out like butter over too much bread. It took forever to find the place, and then the Agnod section was at least twice as long as it needed to be. There were at least four zones in the bloody thing; it was bigger than the average city!
I think it might have gone better if the generator room served as a kind of hub with Pahtira sending me out to various parts of the ship on retrieval missions, rather than having to work through at least 50 difficult fights only to get hit by the betrayal almost immediately.
I found myself kind of flagging during the quest and the subsequent write-up, too. Next up is more main questing with Callia and Jespar, but I think I'm going to take a week or two off to recharge my batteries with this mod.
Maybe do some story writing, or try out Witcher 3 or something.

 

[KinKrow]

Spoiler: pictured: man's dream of flight

Click to shrink...

Embarrassing to say, but the title and character model quality made me think this was a dream-like cinematic of... well, man's dream of flight.

Hoo boy.

Embarrassed.

 

[Guile]

Embarrassing to say, but the title and character model quality made me think this was a dream-like cinematic of... well, man's dream of flight.

Hoo boy.

Embarrassed.

Click to shrink...

In fairness, it doesn't really look like what it is, which is my body rag-dolling down the side of an ice shelf, but it's the screenshot I had handy.

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

So, wait, does this mean she was working with the bandits or not?

Holy cow, was I right and her whole kidnapping thing was actually an attempt at working with them that went wrong?

The world may never know.

While I can see why she'd think being in a big stompy robot body with more hitpoints than your current body would be great, but you really need to field test these things to iron out problems like 'highly vulnerable to arrows' before the procedure.

 

[Guile]

So, wait, does this mean she was working with the bandits or not?

Holy cow, was I right and her whole kidnapping thing was actually an attempt at working with them that went wrong?

The world may never know.

While I can see why she'd think being in a big stompy robot body with more hitpoints than your current body would be great, but you really need to field test these things to iron out problems like 'highly vulnerable to arrows' before the procedure.

Click to shrink...

I like to imagine Pahtira has been trying to sabotage Yerai and take Horst for herself from day one, and Yerai just never noticed because it kept going wrong for her (like winding up in a bandit's jail).

 

[KinKrow]

In fairness, it doesn't really look like what it is, which is my body rag-dolling down the side of an ice shelf, but it's the screenshot I had handy.

Click to shrink...

It looks like your character is falling into a trippy cosmos tilting forward.

lol

 

[Guile]

Let's see if I can't get back into the swing of this, shall I?


- Back at the plot, Lexil is ready to drop some info on these black stones I'm looking for.
Lexil describes trying to figure out the Beacon to a child trying to reverse-engineer a Starling spaceship, which is a pretty cool turn of phrase. Apparently trying to use the magitech masterpiece of a long-dead race is hard, or something.
If you want to trade places, you could brave the killer spaceship while I look over your notes, Lexy.

- Anyway, after studying his notes we come up with three places to try: the estate of a noble in town, an apothecarius in Undercity, and the burned ruin of House Dal'Varek.
That's right, we don't have to dig through the ruins of my house: we have to dig through Jespar's.

- All the sub-quests have really ominous names, too.
'Black Light, Part I' is the overarching quest, 'All the Dead Souls' is Jespar's, 'Angel' is Calia's, and 'A Song in the Silence' is interrogating a noble in town … Okay, 'Black Light' just sounds like Lexil is directing me to his weed guy to pick him up a dime bag and we're gonna smoke out together later, and 'Angel' is fine.
That one will probably turn out to be the worst one of all.

- I do a bit of investigatory work on all three of them first before I decide which one to go on first.
First up is this fun bit when you go looking for Jespar where he's unavailable because he went to go have a private meeting with a noblewoman. Is it his sister? A contact? Are they fuckin'? The barkeep's money is on her being one of his 'beloveds'. Note the plural.
I wish this barkeep guy had a bigger part, he's fun.
Anyway, I get a letter for him, which I look at immediately because this is a fantasy world where mail laws don't exist. It's a map. I'll need to go looking for clues to… probably find Jespar's missing sister? And presumably Jespar will catch up later somehow? Not sure how, I have his map now.

- The apothecarius I'm to meet in Undercity sets me on the trail of a legendary healer-turned-maybe-necromancer named Dal'Galar.
Well, first she takes potshots at me for being some fancy-pants Order fellow who doesn't like to get her hands dirty down here with the fleshmaggots.

Spoiler: We don't take kindly to your kind 'round here

Lady, I'll forgive you because you don't know me. But these garments you're referencing? I literally pulled them off five different dead guys. I wish it was all ball gowns and parties up there.
I do like her model though. I think this is the first old woman the game has thrown at me. And she's sassy.
... I miss Constantine.

- Calia turns up, and wants to help, thinking this 'Angel' thing is supposed to heal all diseases so it'll heal her… witchiness. I can already tell it's not going to be that easy, but hey, if she wants to tag along, I'm game. She wants her assistance to be under the radar, though, since it would be hard to explain why she wants this thing so bad.
So instead she's just going to go off the grid for days while we track down this legend's castle. Sounds legit. The Order won't suspect a thing I'm sure.

- Calia led me next to a spot next to the apothecary's cellar door to tell me all this, so I pop in to see what's up.
And a 'Lost One in the Wardrobe' pops out. This Supreme Sister Salvina lady literally has skeletons in her closet. Am I going to have to kill her? I think I might have to kill her, later.

- Also I decide to wander over to a bit of the Undercity I've never seen before, since I'm here. It's the orphanage!
What fresh hell shall I find there? Must I face… children?

Spoiler: This is at least the third worst welcome I've ever received at an orphanage

Nope, it's Vatyr. Lots of Vatyr. And some carved wooden hobby horses and teddy bears and stuff, but mostly Vatyr. Why are there Vatyr in the orphanage? Is there some kind of law that says the Undercity can't have nice things?
SureAI kind of missed an opportunity to have you be attacked by child Vatyr, I think. That would up the what-the-fuck factor a bit.

- Anyway, back up into the sunlight! The Del'Geyss point of contact for 'Song in the Silence' is a giant house in the noble quarter that I've gone by half a dozen times. There's an adventurer serving as doorguard out front.
I use Rhetoric to applaud him for being such a stalwart so well that he starts cursing me out and psyching himself up to get back to adventuring.

Spoiler: A believe you, door guard with delusions of grandeur

So of course I walk right in. It's pretty fuckin' fancy in here, I tell you what.

Spoiler: dem pots

Look at all those pots. Man likes his pots.
Anyway, Dal'Geyss assumes I'm here to rob him, because… well that's fair. I did actually help myself to a gold ingot on the way in here. He assures me that his personal bodyguard is a real nasty customer, not like that boob out front. I think he's from the Relata or something?
Unfortunately there's no option to say 'What, that guy? Looks like a pussy to me' and instead I'm summarily ejected from the house.

- Never one to take 'no' for an answer, I pick the lock on the back door and come back in. This is a stealth mission, one that unfortunately resets if a guard spots you in any way. There's no, like, 'stab guard like asshole before he alerts anyone' option.
It's a little baffling why I can't just raid this guy's house with a writ from the Order to make him tell me what's up, but whatever, I'm always up for a little light B&E.
After Solid Snaking my way upstairs, I then end up resetting the mission like a dozen times trying to get over to Dal'Geyss before realizing I need to exit his room by way of balcony, work my way up a ladder to the roof, then work my way over to another balcony and then into a storeroom.
Not exactly intuitive, you know?
So I swipe a birth certificate and you know, it turns out Dal'Geyss is the sort of dick that turns out his kid if they're born deformed, but the mistress gave the kid the black stone thinking he could sell it and maybe live an okay life…?
This is the story I find out after blackmailing him, anyway.

- So those are the three quests, which I can do in any order. I'm tentatively leaning towards tackling this Notre Dame situation first, under the assumption that Calia and Jespar's quests should be more fun and I like to save the best for last.


The Takeaway:
I appreciate SureAI trying to do something different with the stealth section, but it's not really something the system was ever designed for and it mostly turned out frustrating. Also not sure about taking Jespar's mail, but whatever, I'm sure the Prophetess knows what she's doing.

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

And a 'Lost One in the Wardrobe' pops out. This Supreme Sister Salvina lady literally has skeletons in her closet. Am I going to have to kill her? I think I might have to kill her, later.

Click to shrink...

Hey, if there's just one skeleton in her closet, that's nothing. I'd show you the screenshots of my Oblivion character's mage tower, but I lost them when that computer died. Point is, I had collected every skeleton bit that was a lootable object from every tomb I'd been sent into and arranged them into patterns in said tower. You know, normal Necromancer stuff, since I was basically better at necromancy than the official necromancers. Except maybe that Lich King at the end. He knew his necromantic summoning better than I did, but I don't think he fully optimized the use of black soul gems for enchanting, which is weird, given his age. And I was better at Transmutation and Illusion.

On the other hand, most video game NPC Necromancers are unreasonable or I wouldn't have been dueling an Archlich in the first place, so you might have to kill her. Does she have any other obviously sinister features?

Are you getting this feeling?

It's a little baffling why I can't just raid this guy's house with a writ from the Order to make him tell me what's up, but whatever, I'm always up for a little light B&E.

Click to shrink...

I'm not really clear on how much official power this Order has. Can they do that?

 

[Guile]

On the other hand, most video game NPC Necromancers are unreasonable or I wouldn't have been dueling an Archlich in the first place, so you might have to kill her. Does she have any other obviously sinister features?

Click to shrink...

Well, she was mean to me, but that doesn't exactly set her apart from the pack around here...

I'm not really clear on how much official power this Order has. Can they do that?

Click to shrink...

Who knows? The peasantry is pretty hardcore religious, and the Order is The Religion.

I get the feeling from some things Tealor has said that the Order is a Knights Templar type group dedicated to the now-vanished-and/or-slain Lightborn. They had outposts in many countries, Enderal is just unusual that it was ruled directly by Malphas the Lightborn as a theocracy?

The Lightborn in Qyra was more hands-off, styling himself a god of learning, while the Nehrim one was rebelled against and slain as a tyrant.

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

Well, with the Lightborn vanished, their official power may have decreased or even increased if his rule is still considered true and they can now do things in his name that he wouldn't have condoned, it's hard to say.

 

[Guile]

I was going through my screenshots, and wanted to share something I skipped over last time:

Spoiler: Pictured: sick burn

I am something of a connoisseur of Endralean insults by now, and I can say that slam was excellent. 9/10, Dal'Geyss.


- Anyway. On the advice of a guy from the Enderal forums, I'm going to actually be doing them in order of difficulty: Calia's, Jespar's, and finally the one I got from Dal'Geyss, Songs In The Silence.
The Angel quest has me meeting Calia in Frostcliff Tavern, on the edge of the Great White North.
When I get there, I find her already questioning two of the locals about that Dal'Guldar guy. Good hustle, Calia!

Spoiler: Sounds like credible info, thanks Random Hunter

I wish this happened more often, honestly; showing up to find the quest already in progress. Jespar could learn a thing or two.

- You can just move on with the quest, but you can also ask around about Dal'Guldar for a bit of extra XP. One customer is convinced he's going to lead a horde of undead rabbit monsters to take over Enderal. One fellow tells a story showing that to a civilian, summoning some ghost-animal is probably pretty damn spooky. The way he tells the story sounds like people have made fun of him for it so much he's half convinced it didn't happen.
Yeah. Summoning ghost animals. What a silly bugger. As if that could ever happen, right guys?

- Due to the bug I spent a lot of time wandering around the tavern talking to people and looking for anything I missed,which involved listening to the minstrel girl play my new favorite Enderalean bard song, as well as a couple others.



The NPC named 'Minstrel', meanwhile, was in the back, stirring a stew pot on the hearth. What is that guy's deal?

- Calia, little ray of sunshine that she is, also has this to say about the war with Nehrim: "They trump us in every aspect - manpower, equipment, siege machinery… Let's just hope the walls of Ark are as durable as they're said to be."
Ark, of course, is the capital of Enderal. She's freely assuming that the enemy will be knocking on the Order's gates shortly.
This is pretty effective story-telling, here: Calia is kind of a downer by nature, but the Nehrimese landed like, a week ago, game-time. When even your party members are expecting your side to roll over in that short a time…
What we're doing right now has nothing to do with resisting the Nehrimese invasion. We're hunting down macguffins to fight the High Ones when we're expecting a wave of purely mortal steel to punch our gates in.
Whatever! It'll be fiiiine.

- The path to Dal'Guldar's fortress is about as far from Frostcliff Tavern as Fogville, that place with all the Arps, but in the exact opposite direction. Along the way almost immediately we're attacked by half a dozen Nehrimese soldiers and a guard dog, but honestly I was fighting guys with the silver swords the Nehrimese are using 10 levels ago.
It's a shame there's only one of me and like five entrances into Ark, I could kill guys like this all day.

- Calia warns me to be careful of a guard tower along the way, but frankly it's right next to the path so I aggro it anyway. Sure, I might have been able to sneak past if I'd stuck to the mountainside and engaged the sneak skill, but after rolling those Nehrimese earlier I'm feeling like maybe I'm actually a big deal after all, and swagger down the path like I own the place.
With Calia tagging along, even 3 wild mages isn't too much of threat. Possibly this is due to one of the mages slipping and falling off the mountain, admittedly.
There are a few kegs of black powder to pick up here, presumably that's going to be useful at some point? Since I've never seen anything like them, I'm assuming 'quest item'.

- More of a problem are a trio of Lost Ones hanging out over a few extremely and thoroughly murdered Keepers on the road.
Lost Ones are some of the highest tiers of undead I've run across except for those Lord of the Lost assholes; a lot of them are naked, but with sweet glowing eyes.
Calia is distraught, and suggests we should search the group for clues. I, of course, am way ahead of her and already wearing the Keeper's baller red cloak.
He did have a written order with him, telling him to go hunt down a local entropist, so we take a brief break to do that. The mine the entropist is hiding in is like 10 steps away, so it's convenient.

- The mine is pretty sweet-looking.

Spoiler: Did they mine ice here?

Not exactly homey, but it has a certain ambiance.

- Elemental wolf bites still hurt a bunch, but they're relatively fragile and never having to fight more than two at a time keeps things manageable.
I learn that the dead Keeper (whose name I have already forgotten) helped Calia during her trial. I like to think that I'm honoring him in my own way; his cloak is going to keep me warm and noble-looking in the cold winter nights ahead, and his boots will finance the Order (I am part of the Order, this fact checks out).

- After dispensing justice at the point of a blade to the no-good Entropist, we come upon an abandoned village covered in fire elementals and elemental wolves. Not entirely sure why. Are they guards? Is something calling them here? The way they're spaced, in ones and twos along the roads of the village, it kind of feels like I stumbled into the Village of the Fire Fairies or something.
Calia informs me that someone has been here recently. Hunters? the Prophetess asks.
No, me. I don't think it's hunters. Unless local hunters know how to tame fire elementals? I don't know, the bloody things always attack me on sight, but then, so do wolves and bears (there are also wolves and bears).

- Just as a side note, wandering off the beaten path a bit after the ice bear leads me to a lonely tower. Abandoned, empty, left open to the elements. At the very top… a book on a pedestal called something like The Life of Whisperwind, Volume 4. If the book is to be believed, this is where the noted murderer and drug (sorry, 'drogae') addict ended up. He joined an ascetic holy order and returned to the right Path. Right here, presumably.
I thought it was neat, anyway. I should probably read more of Enderal's books (besides 'King Lewd and His Maidservant Devotia' and 'Lyrical Gushes And Other Fluids, By Prince Adreyu of Mith', of course, of which I own at least three copies each).

- At the top of the mountain sits the fortress we came here to find.

Spoiler: Castle Dal'Galar seems nice

Next time, I'll actually enter the place. He'll probably be a nice man who will have us in for tea, and we can talk about Calia's curse over biscuits. Or we'll have to fight a bunch of elementals or undead or something.
One of those.


The Takeaway:
Getting to head around the tavern and talk to all the superstitious peasants about the weird things they've heard or seen Dal'Guldar doing was neat, if somewhat buggy. It kind of had the feel of Van Helsing asking about after that mysterious Count in the foreboding castle up ahead. Also, the map is now much more… papery. It's nice.

 

[iamnuff]

Calia is distraught, and suggests we should search the group for clues. I, of course, am way ahead of her and already wearing the Keeper's baller red cloak.

Click to shrink...

Yep, that sounds like an Elder Scrolls Protaganist.

I wish I could play this game now, it sounds much more interesting than vanilla skyrim.
Unfortunately, my computer can barely run skyrim. I fully expect this mod to send my laptop up in smoke.

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

What we're doing right now has nothing to do with resisting the Nehrimese invasion. We're hunting down macguffins to fight the High Ones when we're expecting a wave of purely mortal steel to punch our gates in.

Click to shrink...

Don't worry, I'm sure they'll be delayed by having to fight their way across the countryside. Not by your troops, of course, but by the monsters. They'll be going "that farm looks like a good place to raid for supplies... Why are their so many Vatyr here?!" Then when they leave they get jumped by Lost Ones. Eventually they'll push through by weight of numbers, though, especially once they realize they don't have to outrun the monsters, just the slower members of their own army.

I like Calia's character design. It's simple but still distinctive.

 

[Guile]

Don't worry, I'm sure they'll be delayed by having to fight their way across the countryside. Not by your troops, of course, but by the monsters. They'll be going "that farm looks like a good place to raid for supplies... Why are their so many Vatyr here?!" Then when they leave they get jumped by Lost Ones. Eventually they'll push through by weight of numbers, though, especially once they realize they don't have to outrun the monsters, just the slower members of their own army.

I like Calia's character design. It's simple but still distinctive.

Click to shrink...

I like her design too. The facial tattoo would be murder to draw but in a game it's just a nice thing to set her apart. And it's actually pretty cute how very uncute and serious she acts. I mean, it's a Skyrim game! Live a little! She's talking to an undead prophet in a freaky skull mask that none-the-less gets her ass kicked up and down enderal's coastline! We're being invaded by conquistadors and hoping the bandits and monsters eat them for us!

Actually, Enderal always surprises me how different the characters manage to look when they're limited to human, mostly white, and in the Skyrim system to boot.

Yep, that sounds like an Elder Scrolls Protaganist.

I wish I could play this game now, it sounds much more interesting than vanilla skyrim.
Unfortunately, my computer can barely run skyrim. I fully expect this mod to send my laptop up in smoke.

Click to shrink...

It shouldn't be too much more graphic intensive than Skyrim, but my laptop does tend to start whirring and overheating when I play games on it so I know that feel.

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

It shouldn't be too much more graphic intensive than Skyrim, but my laptop does tend to start whirring and overheating when I play games on it so I know that feel.

Click to shrink...

That's why I always buy desktop. You get a lot more bang for your buck. I don't need portability that much.

 

[Guile]

- So the first thing we discover is a locked door. After a quick conference, Calia suggests we blow it up. You know, like you do.
I point out that I conveniently have two barrels of blackpowder on my person from that tower earlier, and Calia makes a hammer-space joke about impossibly-big pockets! I'm so proud.
Nonetheless, we need more, so we go find some in the prospector town down below. It is a small, very dark hole with almost as many giant spiders as blackpowder barrels. I'm not even surprised. Just disappointed. And a little poisoned.
There's a few exciting minutes of stabbing in the dark before all is quiet again and I can spare the time to put up a mage-light.
I'm honestly not sure if the Frost Spider Queen was already dead (she seems to be looking down the business end of a frost-covered cannon) or if all the wild swinging in the dark did the trick.

- Unfortunately it's not all fun, games and blowing up front doors: Calia has a brief… episode almost immediately.

Spoiler: Calia, shonen protagonist, showing off her Mysterious Power

It's kind of cute that she's giving herself a little pep-talk, but since that pep-talk may be the only thing keeping my insides un-eviscerated… you do whatever you feel like you need to, Calia. Do you want a nice back rub? Maybe a soothing tea?
Actually, if the option existed to say 'Hey, maybe take a load off? Wait down at the tavern? Have a pint on me?' I'd go for it. There is no such option, of course.
I figure the pain she'll be saving me blocking draugr sword stabbin's will be balanced out by her almost inevitable demon-transformation-slash-betrayal.
Should I be happy that SureAI is setting that up ahead of time with foreshadowing, or kind of annoyed I can't tell her to shoo and avoid another cutscene defeat? I'm undecided.

- I suspect Dal'Galar may not want visitors.

Spoiler: no solicitors

Call it a hunch.
There's a brief side-trip looking for a way in past the courtyard, which involves me getting vision-y again. Galar learns from a disciple that the Apothecarius have stopped supplies, like a bartender cutting off a guy who's had a few too many. Except with fresh cadavers, not beer.
Calia, who is REALLY on the ball this quest, wonders why you'd be getting visions of Dal'Galar if they're supposed to be visions of ancient Pyrean times.
This keeps the player from wondering the same thing; if SureAI brought it up, there's probably a reason the 'rule' they introduced earlier is being broken...

- Then a blue flame appearing before the corpses scattered everywhere get back up and draw swords. Behold Dal'Galar's precious panacea The Angel, long gone out of control. Or so I suspect.
Calia has this theory that it's my visions causing them to get back up, which… okay, accidental necromancy isn't OUTSIDE the boundaries of my weird ass powers, probably. But it's not me! Probably.

- It's not exactly new, but the main hall and the smithy I find myself wandering through are nicely atmospheric.

Spoiler: You can do a lot with icicles and pale blue mist

It's also pretty neat how Dal'Galar has these bright blue-white lights hanging here and there, and one fell down onto a snowdrift in front of the tower stairs I need to take. Good level design. Understated, but does a good job drawing the player's eye to where they need to go next.
The main hall is big and echoing, with pillars and lion statues and so on, and I can use the navigational help.

- There's also this lovely lady. Fingers set in quiet ritual repose like a Boddhisatva or a Buddha, shawl gathered about her, very noble and mysterious. Good pose.

Spoiler: you can never be too careful

I've had some bad experiences with statues though, so I unload a few arrows into her (for Constantine) before moving on.
Also, note Calia sounding very inconvenienced by a locked door while we break into this guy's house. I'll turn her into a proper Elder Scrolls protagonist yet!

- I need to find two likely passwords to progress, and Calia suggests we check out the two towers off the main hall. The one on the left tells me, courtesy of another vision, that Dal'Galar's most precious thing is above, and he commissioned a starling to build a magic doorstop. Then poisoned him during the toast. Two can keep a secret only when one is dead, etc.
Galar apologizes and promises to take care of the starling's family, but I'm not buying any of the Greater Good shit that Galar's phantom is shoveling.
Calia is pretty bummed that her hero is kind of a douchebag. I knew this was never going to end any other way though, not with the way the blackstones have been built up as being so Elder Scrollsian.

- So up in the tower, Calia gives me a pouch of blackpowder, 5 fire arrows, and the telekinesis spell, and it's time for a physics puzzle.
I mean, I get it. There have been a lot of vision cutscenes already, and there will be more, and game design theory says not to leave the player out of the action for too long.
But why can't Calia do this for me? Seriously. I'll wait over here. Take your time.
No dice. So there I am spending a handful of minutes throwing a blackpowder barrel at the hole...
Before I realize a 'blackpowder barrel' and a 'pouch of blackpowder' are two different items in my inventory. The explosive barrel I've been bouncing off the hole in the wall for 5 minutes is too big to fit. Whoops.
So I manage to huck the pouch in there after a while. Now out comes the bow, and my task is to shoot a fire arrow in there to set it off.
Well, after only having to pick my missed flaming arrows up off the ground once, I do eventually get one in there, things explode, and I'm allowed to progress.

- Right into a kid's room. I don't need the attendant vision of Galar reading a story to the child on the bed and promising that soon she'll be warm again and able to go out into the world and so on to figure out the story beats from here on out. It's a nice scene; Galar has so far seemed a little cold with his posh accent and erudite demeanor, but this is humanizing. Buuut...
SureAI is mmmmaybe hitting the 'turn to necromancy to save a loved one' beat a little hard. This is the third time now! First with Yero, then with the Aged Man, and now Dal'Galar. The scary lengths people will go to for love seems to be one of the biggest themes of Enderal: Shards of Order (whenever it's not 'people are dicks' or 'nature hates you').
The child on the bed is a corpse, you see. He's been keeping her body fresh with some mixture Kileans use to keep their dead undegraded before sea burial. Because of course Dal'Galar didn't do all this just to save people; he did it to save a person. He has a personal stake in this race!
No matter; we have the first password, 'Maya.'

- The other tower is his laboratory.
Well, first is a bunch of corpses gathered around a dining hall, and I'm firmly expecting to have to fight all these undead party-goers (we've been having to fight 'reawakening servants' here and there all throughout) when instead we're attacked by a Wisp on steroids. As long as a man is tall, shaped vaguely like a floating skeletal serpent, trailing ethereal green flames. Totally rad, honestly. I wish I'd gotten a screenshot of it, but it was kind of a pussy and Calia and my ice elemental piled onto it fast.
More visions, more undead. This is Galar's lab, complete with entirely too many man-sized cages, a skeleton spread out atop the table, and a weirdly excessive number of hammers arranged on tables according to size. Also these things:

Spoiler: Probably not Malphas

A serene-faced woman, hands clasped in prayer, with snakes on her shoulders. I'm not sure what this is supposed to evoke, exactly. The serpent-goddesses of Crete and India? The caduceus? The serpent heads bear a more than passing resemblance to the prow heads on the viking longboats full of undead that occupy many of Enderal's scenic beaches...

- The vision has Galar asking his disciple to pack her bags. She was trying to get him to change course, citing that he's not even healing people any more. He's spending all his time 'with this… with this girl.'
So Galar asks her to pack her shit. Not shouting, he's grateful for everything she's done… but it's time for her to go. She sounds shocked, the kind of shock that'll probably transition to heartbreak the second those doors with the crucified corpses close behind her.
Does Galar see the end coming, and trying to spare her? Or is there no thought in his head for anyone except 'the girl'?

Spoiler: kinda wish we knew the name of this disciple

Galar's back looks… tired.

- I'm starting to suspect Maya isn't Galar's child at all, not biologically. Something in the way the disciple talks about the girl, it's almost like they found her in the snow. And everything Calia has ever heard of Galar, it's like he could never find time for women when there was The Work.
Could she be a pyrean like our friend frozen in the ice? Could she be a creation of the black stone?
The mystery is heating up.

- More books. Endless books. Shelves upon shelves. A huge library.
Then on the next floor, a taxidermist's dream house. Snow bears and Lost Ones and trolls all stuffed and preserved. Classy.
And at the tippy top of the tower, corpses preserved in fluid. Like in the Aged Man's house. With little bars on the caskets, in case of sudden reanimation into draugr!
Say what you will about Dal'Galar, the man knows his lab safety procedures.

Spoiler: Pictured: 'safety first' necromancy

The watery coffins are set up in a ring around a dark, dull stone. If it's a soul stone, it's an absolutely massive one. The vision helpfully shows Galar taking energy from the rock and throwing it into the bodies, hoping that the formula is Death + Life energy = Life.
"Energy is life, and energy is death. A trifle less. Not much less, only a little," Galar hypothesizes. So he just needs a little energy to kick the state over from being death to being alive, I guess, like adding a charge to a dead car battery?
Doesn't work, of course.

- We do learn that Maya actually is his daughter, go figure. And more importantly, that Taniysha is the name of his wife. We find a letter that shows she… has no idea their daughter is dead. Galar spirited her away to the north under the pretense of 'curing her disease.' He says the cool air is good for her, and her cheeks are getting rosier…
Rough.

This feels like it's getting long, so I'll break this off here for now, and finish up the quest next update.


The Takeaway:
This quest had kind of a slow start (and a few typos and bugs), but it's finally kicking into high gear now. Galar's phantom is hemorrhaging money and support, sending his most loyal follower away, and starting to sound a little unhinged. 'This must work! It will work!', that kind of thing.
Before you know it it'll be all 'THE FOOLS!' and 'They laughed at the academy!' and then come the legions of bunny Lost Ones to sweep o'er the living like it's Night of the Lepus

 

[Guile]

- Now that I know both passwords, the only thing left to do is to head into the central tower. Right away, I'm face to face once again with Enderal's strong statue game.

Spoiler: Why the grate in the ceiling, tho

Not sure what this guy is either. Some kind of half-human horned shaman and his mastiff dog companion? Great pose and manly pecs, whatever he is.

- It's hard to focus on the statue or the rest of the room though, because I can see red dots denoting enemies moving about. Near as I can tell, the open grate in the ceiling lets all the monsters on the second floor see me and come a-running, including a giant Grotesque Lost One.
It's hard to feel threatened by the Reawakened Servants I've been fighting. Not sure why.
They hurt quite a bit, but then they also die in 2-3 swings of my own weapons, so I end each fight with low health but then I just eat all their souls and heal back up.
Possibly it's just that they don't look like much, just bog-standard Lost Ones in leather armor with steel swords?

Well, before I head up, I investigate the rest of the room. It's another library, filled to the brim with treatises on magic, psionics, history, geography, and… aha!

Spoiler: I knew it

It gets pretty lonely up here after you killed all the servants and drove away the disciples, doesn't it, Dal'Galar?

- The second floor looks like a big open arena type area that would probably be pretty exciting to fight a giant undead monster in. Oh well. It's about that time when I'm wondering what Calia meant when she said people had been through that prospector town, when the portcullis comes down trapping me on one side and Calia and my ice elemental on the other.

Spoiler: I can explode people's minds, btw

Well, it's not… exactly… a cutscene defeat?
Seriously, though. Where the heck were these guys hiding in the fire elemental-and-spider-infested ruin of the town? How long were they waiting for us?

- This brightly colored but surprisingly well-dressed gentleman is apparently employed by the same guys who attacked Lishari in that old ruin whose name I don't remember. He has nothing good to say about the idiots who set fire to the ruin they were inside, and for a moment our minds are in sync on how terrible those guys were.
The merc is apparently being paid like a king to take us out. Since I doubt the High Ones employ a lot of Kilean mercenaries, I'm going to go ahead and assume Coarek is behind this, but I'm willing to be surprised. Maybe it's the Truchessa, trying to smash the magic macguffin so Tealor Arantheal will stop messing around with the Beacon? Who knows.
He's about two lines into his supervillain monologue when Calia tries to stick a greatsword through his face (God bless you, girl) and we learn he's a master of Mentalism.
I'm wishing I'd found the psionic spell to block attacks and telekinetically dangle my enemies in midair, I tell you what. All I could find were books on Panic I through IV.
This does explain why my loyal elemental is just standing there like a lump, though! Psychic mind whammy! Or bad pathing, but I like that first thing more.

- Calia says stuff like, 'Run! Find the Angel!' and, well, she's the one with cutscene powers, so I comply.
But just for posterity's sake, allow me to share some of the things the Prophetess hears as she tries to work her way around back to that room, which I have dubbed the Uncomfortable Offscreen Rape Montage:

Spoiler: Uncomfortable Offscreen Rape: the Montage

So, we're all adults here, right? I think we can all agree this is absolutely a gang rape about to happen.
The game even gives a countdown. 35 seconds, here's some re-awakening servants in your way, go! There's a locked door that none of the roughly 50 keys I have on my person (each servant dropped two) works on, so I turn to the right… right around when Calia has been reduced to pleading with them to get away because we all know what happens when Calia gets wound-up, I smash right through the floor and things get kind of blurry for a minute.
I appreciate Calia's voice work here, but I even more appreciate it when the screams and snarls begin.
As any Left For Dead survivor will tell you, Don't Startle the Witch.

- Once I get back to the room, I have to think in amazement, "Is that thing getting worse??"

Spoiler: Calia was here

I mean, the chunks of former people, sure, that's pretty standard for Calia on a tear… but why is everything on fire?
Calia is out cold on the floor in the midst of all that. And cold. And possibly dead.

- I have the option to make her a bed and a fire ('but where am I going to find fire?' I laugh to myself) instead of leaving her lying there, and that's kind of cute, so I do that.
Then, well. I'm a girl on a mission now, aren't I? Find the Angel, scare up some life energy, pop it back into Calia, bob's your uncle.

- Well, there's a couple more fights and visions to work through, first.
The next batch has Galar going on about how, tomorrow, she'll be all right again! Also, apparently, he expects her resurrection to come with a free batch of superpowers?
Heal the blind and the lame, uplift mankind, yadda yadda.

Spoiler: Maya action figure, now with Savior action

I mostly feel my face pull into a weird sneer-grimace watching Maya's very… action figure pose, there. It wasn't so obvious in the bed, but here, it's all too clear that Dal'Galar is talking to a corpse.
Did he pick her up from her bed, I wonder? Did he carry her to this dining hall and set her up in a chair himself? Did he cook all her favorite dishes and set them in front of her?
Or did the servants I just re-killed do it while he looked on fondly?
Eurgh.

- More cool statues, this quest is full of them! Also, the object of the quest – and one last battle, natch. By this point I've been conditioned to expect the corpses lying around to get back up in a sheet of blue fire, but also I need to fight one of those serpent anomalies (one that looks more like the normal spooky ghost serpents, not that glowing green lad from the research tower)

Spoiler: Well this just looks like a boss battle waiting to happen

And the only time I actually died all quest; my own fault, really, I stopped moving while trying to stab the anomaly long enough for the archers to feather me.

- One more vision to go. Papa Dal'Galar uses the black stone, and Maya… wakes up.
This is Dal'Galar's voice actor really bringing his A-game, too. When he stutters on 'M-Maya? Can you… can you hear me?' you just know that this is all he wants with his whole being, and if it doesn't work again it'll crack him like breaking glass.
And of course the game gives us a second for Maya to seem fine before it brings the hammer down.

Spoiler: Hey Maya, are you okay? Do you want a backrub? Or a soothing tea?

And I go, "Ohhhhhh." That's the shadowy demon thing. Yep.
I don't really need to watch the Veiled Woman explode the poor cleric/necromancer and call Li'l Calia by her name to figure out how this goes.
Because really, if you wind up with a demon attached to your soul, it just makes a lot more sense for someone to have put it there rather than it grow on its own. Unknowingly, probably, although Galar seems like the kind of Faustian bargainer who would consider that a fair trade.
After all, the only one not in danger from the demon is the little girl it's attached to.
Pft! And he thought it was going to give her Jesus powers. Man, don't you know this is Enderal? The continent where dreams go to die.

- It's all over but the crying, now. I'm a little sad I didn't get to see the Prophetess juggling the black stone and the Angel over Calia's rapidly-cooling body trying to figure out how that works, but this is fine too I guess.
You get an option to either tell Calia the truth or snow her. Claim Dal'Galar was killed in a potions accident or whatever.
The comforting lie option is for moms who lose their sons to cults, though, not to a Keeper 4th rank. Why should I be the only one to suffer?
Well, after the smash cut back to Frostcliff Tavern there's a whole conversation tree we can go through to try and make sense of it all. Calia is not taking it well, which, sure. I get that. She's no worse off than before as far as I'm concerned, but Calia's kind of a 'glass is half empty' paladin anyway.
I am kind of glad I didn't try to sell her on the 'You know, the demon isn't so bad, you'd be dead now if not for it' when I get this line:

Spoiler: SUCH GRATIFICATION

And I mean, considering how rape-y that whole segment was, and now this line? ... Yeah. I'm with you on Team Demon Bad, Calia. Yikes.
Nice lighting, though.
Also, collarbones.
… What? I'm allowed to notice.


The Takeaway:
And that's the first quest of three. Woo boy.

… I have so many questions.
What was reanimating the undead, if The Angel is just a tool for transferring energy? Was it really my visions, like Calia said? I am kind of a lich I guess...
Are the visions maybe flooding energy into my surroundings as they seem to stop time for me to have a convenient flashback, causing death energy to kick over into life energy?
What was up with that green-glowing spectral snake?
Why is there a black stone for me to pick up, if Galar stuck it in Calia?

Also, holy shit the Veiled Woman is a High One-tier asshole. Like, she just waited and watched as I got tied to a rock and sunk, and that's kind of shitty, but par for the course for Mysterious Oracles. But she intentionally put Calia in that village like a bomb primed and ready to blow. Just to get her into the Order? Have you ever tried the old 'drop her off on the doorstep with a note' gambit?
Cold, man.

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

- So the first thing we discover is a locked door. After a quick conference, Calia suggests we blow it up. You know, like you do.
I point out that I conveniently have two barrels of blackpowder on my person from that tower earlier, and Calia makes a hammer-space joke about impossibly-big pockets! I'm so proud.

Click to shrink...

Hm... Actually, aren't you some kind of solid ghost? Maybe you really do have extradimensional pockets. Do you hear the howling of the damned every time you access your inventory? Are you going to face fines for littering the netherworld with your loot? Between this and your latter possible accidental necromancy, I'm starting to think you should really have that condition of yours looked into.

no solicitors

Click to shrink...

Now here's a guy who knows how to decorate. And what do you mean, you feel unwelcome? That skeleton on the left is clearly pointing you in.

ureAI is mmmmaybe hitting the 'turn to necromancy to save a loved one' beat a little hard. This is the third time now! First with Yero, then with the Aged Man, and now Dal'Galar. The scary lengths people will go to for love seems to be one of the biggest themes of Enderal: Shards of Order (whenever it's not 'people are dicks' or 'nature hates you').

Click to shrink...

To be fair, if there was magic that could possibly raise the dead, it seems to me like anyone who doesn't jump on that just didn't love their family enough. And with the bars on the caskets later, this guy seems like he's got his act together, not like all those bastards I had to put down like rabid dogs in the standard Elder Scroll necromancer encounters.

"Energy is life, and energy is death. A trifle less. Not much less, only a little," Galar hypothesizes. So he just needs a little energy to kick the state over from being death to being alive, I guess, like adding a charge to a dead car battery?

Click to shrink...

I feel like this misses the point that injuries or whatever are what caused the energy to leak out in the first place. You'd need to fix the damage first, or you'd just be pouring water into a broken cup, waiting for it to be full again.

Not sure what this guy is either. Some kind of half-human horned shaman and his mastiff dog companion?

Click to shrink...

Wait, is than an in joke reference to the Skyrim Daedra that has an immortal magical dog servant who goes questing with you? Nice statue, either way.

Also, I know most mercenaries are scum, but I'm surprised they went there. Ah well, at least it led to karmic horrible deaths.
Also, I love this line:

I mean, the chunks of former people, sure, that's pretty standard for Calia on a tear… but why is everything on fire?

Click to shrink...

Just the casual dismissiveness of the first part followed by the excited second amuses me.

As for the demon... I'm more inclined to think it evil for killing the girls' father than for enjoying killing her would-be rapists.

And that's the first quest of three. Woo boy.

Click to shrink...

Wasn't this supposed to be the easy one, too?

 

[Guile]

To be fair, if there was magic that could possibly raise the dead, it seems to me like anyone who doesn't jump on that just didn't love their family enough. And with the bars on the caskets later, this guy seems like he's got his act together, not like all those bastards I had to put down like rabid dogs in the standard Elder Scroll necromancer encounters.

Click to shrink...

Compared to Dal'Galar's setup, Yero's dug out cellar shrine is literally a hole in the ground.

That's the difference between a normal Keeper and one with that fancy noble 'Dal' prefix on their name I guess.

Also, I know most mercenaries are scum, but I'm surprised they went there. Ah well, at least it led to karmic horrible deaths.

Click to shrink...

Seriously! I mean, almost everyone I've met on this continent are unrepentant assholes, but that was a step beyond where I thought they were going.

As for the demon... I'm more inclined to think it evil for killing the girls' father than for enjoying killing her would-be rapists.

Click to shrink...

Well, Dal'Galar's ghost exploded into lightning and Galar-chunks, which isn't a power I've seen Calia's demon use... yet. I figured it was the Veiled Woman at work. I dunno, maybe that's where all the fire came from this time? Man, if Demon Calia can shoot lightning now, I'm really starting to feel stiffed (ho-ho) in my Protagonist Existence-Beyond-Death Powers compared to hers.

Wasn't this supposed to be the easy one, too?

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Yyyyeah....

 

[Guile]

Been a while, yeah? Let's do this thing.

- So when we last left our stalwart heroes, Calia was traumatized again and spending some time alone in her room. I had to fight my way across the Great White North again and complete a physics puzzle, but I got a nice cloak out of it and also a plot macguffin so that's fine.
After dropping by Ark again to sell off some stuff and picking up Summon Bow V and Summon Mud Elemental II, I headed out on the next leg of the quest, entitled <All The Dead Souls>.
Now historically, ghosts in this game have been of the terrifying and/or exploding varieties. But on the upside, all three 'clues' are really close to Ark so that's handy.

- The mud elemental is so tiny and adorable! And when he's bored he sits on his tiny haunches like a dog or an internet meme about Slavs.

Spoiler: just taking my mud for a walk, pay us no mind citizens

But buggy. Or … possibly working as intended? Half the time the spell just… fizzles unless I'm on solid land. Bridges and crypt floors seem to be right out. But I mean, he is a mud elemental. So maybe that's how it works?
In which case I would applaud SureAI for attention to detail but then never use the little guy again since Ice Elementals can be summoned anywhere and the only downside with him is trying to train him not to block doorways.

- It's been a while since I've just wandered around the Ark countryside, and it's something of a palate cleanser after trying to chop snow bears and undead monsters to death/re-death up North. The area around Ark is always summer, with plentiful greenery and lakes and misty mountains in the distance. Ark itself looks like a hive of industry with its little waterwheels and mills and the stables and farms everywhere.

Spoiler: Look at that majestic figure - also the statue above the player on the donkey is nice too

And actually pretty defensible, now that I'm looking at it from the angle of Calia's doom-and-gloom about the Nehrimese sieging the place.
The three entrances are over bridges with multiple watchtowers. Every entrance into the city is set into a heavily fortified gate.
Fingers crossed for a siege section, it would be a shame to have this well-designed city and not put it to the test don't you think?
Mind you, the bridges and watchtowers could mostly be bypassed by just sailing into the harbor where all the sailors and fishermen hang out, and the Nehrimese came to Enderal by boat.
But even then every district inside has sturdy doors and mortared walls, and the Sun Temple is on top of a goddamn mountain up about a hundred feet of defensible climb to the very top of the city (carved to look like… well, it kind of looks like some poor slave is having to hold up the temple, but maybe I'm just having Kirkwall flashbacks to Dragon Age 2).

- Anyway. Ark: still beautiful. Moving on.
The first 'clue' (read: minimap marker) takes me to a little cove just south of Ark. Something like an underground river with its own moored boat.
Thank god for the minimap, is all I'll say. Because if finding the macguffin relied on my ability to decode a treasure map...
Well, 'treasure' is being overly generous, turns out.

Spoiler: the eerie glow is some poor bastard kicking back and taking an acid bath

There's something like a suicide note, giving his name and explaining his crimes. Trafficking nearly a thousand souls into and out of Enderal, probably right here in this cove.
He remembers exact numbers, but he does not remember their names.
There's this line about the 'Bonejudge' judging him for his crimes, and I wonder… is this some just god measuring crime and punishment on the scale of a life, like Ma'at?
Presumably this will become clear later, along with the cipher given at the end of the note.

- The next 'clue' is in Ark itself, leading me to a sewer cover I've walked past a couple times.
Inside, well. The first real set piece for the area is:

Spoiler: are his pants falling off? give the man some dignity, game

Really sets the tone, you know?
I'm starting to think the Bonejudge is less 'keeper of the afterlife' and more some mortal authority helping things along. Where the guy in the acid bath was all by his lonesome in a hidden alcove that yeah, maybe nobody ever found before me, this fellow is definitely not lonely.
Ghostly guardians patrol the rooms, and corpses are shackled to walls or left hanging out.
I'm thinking… old prison, probably.
A cart full of skulls, meticulously stacked.
Whole skeletons carpet the floor of a nook at the base of a staircase.
There's this bit, which… I don't even know what I'm looking at, here:

Spoiler: okay, who exploded in here, come on, I won't be mad

Somebody's favorite torture chair?

- At the end is a lonely cage, with food set all around. Good lighting.

Spoiler: I was so happy until it turns out the food around the cage is spoiled

The woman in the cage also has a note penned in her own hand. She was a murderess for hire called the 'black widow'. For her crimes, she will place herself in this cage with no food or drink and starve to death. Which she obviously did.
Is this place hers, then? Because there's at least sixty dead men scattered about in here, if you count up the skulls and skeletons, and … if she were a hitwoman, and this hideaway contains evidence of her work, then she was the Stephen King of the fantasy murderer's scene.

- I'm starting to feel like I'm learning less about this quest as I complete it, not more.
Is this suicide, or murder? Is it divine revelation, mortal mind control, did the Bonejudge force this woman into a little cage and spread food all around just to twist the knife a little?
Is this the Bonejudge's hideout, or the Black Widow's? The human trafficker was left in a place that I think was intended to evoke his crimes, that little underground grotto with the boat...
What does this have to do with Jespar? Because I'm going to be honest, if it turns out Jespar is pulling night shifts as a murderous vigilante of Justice, I think I'm going to have to withdraw all the come ons I've been sending his way. Killing people is kind of my raison d'etre, but sticking them in a cage and starving them to death is a bit much, you know?

- Actually, I've been feeling like the 'Bonejudge' is kind of familiar somehow, but I'm not sure where…

Spoiler: the giant rock face in my brain reads 'Bonejudge', that's not ominous or anything

Oh yyyeah. My skill tree.
Now, I'd like to say with certainty that I am definitely probably not the Bonejudge. 65% certain at least.
But you know… you never can be sure in this game.
If it turns out I'm blacking out and sadistically torturing murderers in my free time, I will definitely take back all the stuff I said about Jespar. And request immediate cuddles.

- Well enough existential dread, I still have one more clue to track down!
This isn't the first time I've plugged the music in this game, but that was the original bard songs. This is just the background music as I'm riding through the local farmlands, a little thing of piano and woodwind… wow, though. It just makes you want to forget the looming apocalypse and just ride on, you know?

- And then from all that auditory beauty right to the murder site in some nondescript farm. It's like Enderal is saying, 'Isn't this place a beauty? But scratch a layer off the surface and it's pain and misery all the way down.'
It fits. I love Enderal but this game is dark as a chasm straight into the center of the earth compared to Skyrim's 'save the world from dragons lol' main quest.

- I remember the endless Vatyr of old Haystacks, so I am kind of terrified when my minimap leads me to the Ark farms and a place called Old Granary.
It's actually pretty low-key, though. Just a bunch of giant rats.

Spoiler: How are these rats not starved to death tho

The corpse's note is penned in a shaky hand, and it's clear the writer is under duress.
This cellar is where he kidnapped children from the Undercity, and so it is the site where he will be eaten by rats while still alive.

- It's pretty clear by now that the Bonejudge is tracking down these people and sadistically murdering them in the places most connected to their own crimes. I was wondering if these were one of those 'ironic punishment' deals, but no. Merely a brutal one.
The slave trafficker, dipped in acid.
The hitwoman, starved to death.
The kidnapper and child abuser, eaten by rats.
And if you put the cipher at the end of each letter together, it's reads: "For my brothers in arms: 'Knock knock, who's there? Come in alone, if you dare.'"

- Now, atmospheric, I grant you!
But I'm not actually too sure how the Prophetess put together a location from the cipher. Were the letters printed on the backs of maps, or…?
Also, it seems a little unlikely for anyone to actually find all three of these murder sites and put together the code without someone (naming no names, just in case the Enderalean post office is onto me) intercepting Jespar's mail. So this is starting to seem like something of a taunt directed at possibly me but probably Jespar specifically.
A 'come find me, if you dare.'

Well, all right then.

The Takeaway:
I appreciate the story-driven nature of this quest, it's just a little weird how mechanically easy it is after Calia's. Like, an hour ago I was battling killing Nehrimese war parties so I could kill bandit wizards so I could kill a village full of elemental wolves and giant spiders for the privilege of battling my way through an abandoned keep full of reanimated corpses.
Now I'm fighting large-ish rats. Which, yeah, they gave me a disease, but a trip to the doctor will clear that right up.
Actually I'm noticing a lot of minimap markers that I haven't investigated yet, so I think I'll take a brief sidetrip before continuing on my quest to track down the Enderalean Punisher.

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

The mud elemental is so tiny and adorable! And when he's bored he sits on his tiny haunches like a dog or an internet meme about Slavs.

Click to shrink...

Huh. I would not have expected Mud Elemental II to be smaller than Mud Elemental I. It's a nice surprise.

Nice detail that the guy holding up the solar temple has a sunburst on his chest.

That corpse just relaxing in glowing green goo is giving me Undercity flashbacks.

are his pants falling off

Click to shrink...

Well he is a lot thinner now then when he put them on. What I want to know is what's holding him together? This isn't just a case of a skeleton on the ground or even sitting holding together or being held together by it's clothes. He's bare from the waist up and hanging by his neck. He should be in a couple piles beneath that rope, with all that weight pullin on him. Yes, it is a cool image, but you could have stopped all these fridge logic questions by just having him be a desiccated corpse like the cryptkeeper. Maybe this Bonejudge is using necromancy to keep the body in position.

A cart full of skulls, meticulously stacked.Whole skeletons carpet the floor of a nook at the base of a staircase.

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I'll say this for him, he's got nice taste in decor.

So , the thing that should worry you is that the blood by that chair is clearly fresh. We're talking minutes, not hours since whatever happened... happened.

If it turns out I'm blacking out and sadistically torturing murderers in my free time,

Click to shrink...

Yeah, that's all ominous as hell. At least you can commiserate with Calia about having a murderous alternate personality whose victims are mostly evil assholes, I guess.

I am really impressed by the level of darkness and foreshadowing that goes into this game. I wasn't really impressed by the concept of "we rewrote Skyrim to make our own game" at first, but while I am probably going to be too spoiled to try and play it myself for at least a few years, but I might snag it for later and recommend it to friends.

How are these rats not starved to death

Click to shrink...

I'm pretty sure we're looking at what they've been eating, front and center there. And maybe there used to be more rats and the biggest ate the smallest. These may be giants because they're rat wendigo, is what I'm saying.

I'm guessing the letters were actually printed with maps or simple directions that your quest log is skipping, the same way people say "I'll draw you a map" and then it usually just adds a point to your minimap in games. Actually... Maybe each letter has a return address that leads to the next?

Anyway, this definitely looks like a challenge to you or Jasper. Or your whole order ("Brothers in arms"). But this guy isn't Enderal Punisher. He's Enderal John Doe [Seven].

 

[Guile]

What I want to know is what's holding him together? This isn't just a case of a skeleton on the grund or even sitting holding together or being held together by it's clothes. He's bare from the waist up and hanging by his neck. He should be in a couple piles beneath that rope, with all that weight pullin on him. Yes, it is a cool image, but you could have stopped all these fridge logic questions by just having him be a desiccated corpse like the cryptkeeper. Maybe this Bonejudge is using necromancy to keep the body in position.

Click to shrink...

Lots and lots of milk when he was alive?

Yeah, that's all ominous as hell. At least you can commiserate with Calia about having a murderous alternate personality whose victims are mostly evil assholes, I guess.

Click to shrink...

We're like Murder Buddies! Murdies, for short.

I am really impressed by the level of darkness and foreshadowing that goes into this game. I wasn't really impressed by the concept of "we rewrote Skyrim to make our own game at first, but while I am probably going to be too spoiled to try and play it myself for at least a few years, but I might snag it for later and recommend it to friends.

Click to shrink...

The guys following this series on the SureAI forums are looking forward to my reactions to future events, so I assume there's more plot twists in store.

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

Lots and lots of milk when he was alive?

Click to shrink...

That makes your bones stronger. What it doesn't stop is the connective tissue between them from rotting away with the rest of your flesh.

EDIT: Unless his flesh didn't rot off, but was carefully removed while leaving delicate, hard to see connective ligaments behind and/or stringing thin threads along the body to keep him in one piece. I wouldn't put it past the person running that place.

We're like Murder Buddies! Murdies, for short.

Click to shrink...

Ooh, and you've both come back from the dead, too! Clearly you are soulmates.

I look forward to the plot twists.

 

[iamnuff]

That makes your bones stronger. What it doesn't stop is the connective tissue between them from rotting away with the rest of your flesh.

Click to shrink...

Wire?

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

Wire?

Click to shrink...

Yeah, pretty much there's no way that guy hung himself and just rotted there, someone had to have posed the body and done something to hold it together, whether wire or necromancy.

 

[Guile]

- I'd like to inform the farmer outside that her tenant seems to have come down with a bad case of eaten by rats, but she doesn't even have a name so that doesn't go anywhere.
Think I'm going to take a day off from this saving the world business. Prophets get vacation days right?

- Heading north takes me to a picturesque little town called Bridgehead Farm built hand in hand with one of the ancient ruins.

Spoiler: pictured: brick watchtower, quaint food provisioner, charming clothesline, ancient demesne of monsters and undead

The poster reads, "Once magic runneth through your veins, / Be wary not to go astray! / The Order's help you shall then seek / And Malphas words you need to heed / Else your magic will go wild / And death will soon make you its child."
Now sure this almost sounds like some Dragon Age 'keep the mages contained and docile' plot, and I'd like to learn more, but more importantly...
Hopefully Death is actually an anthropomorph in this universe, or whoever's in charge of posters for the Order is going waaaaay too far to try and rhyme that last couplet. 'Make you its child?' That's awful.
I wish I knew my standing in the Order so I could know if I can fire that guy.

- Crimes against literature aside, if Skyrim's Markarth is 'people living in the ancient ruins (including the Dwemer's ridiculous stone beds)', then this is 'people building their town on top of the ancient ruins.' Equally interesting but very different narrative. Markarth feels kind of stuck in the past, while this little town feels… kind of like a massacre waiting to happen.
Because Enderal.
The local owner of the rustic, hay-filled inn The Red Ox is pretty boring for a guy named – conveniently enough – The Red Ox. A name like that deserves a story more than the innkeeper of the Fat Loran ever did.
But The Red Ox is completely taciturn, and not in an interesting way. Some innkeepers offer rumors and news, or buys and sells goods, but Ox only offers a bed for the night.
It's a shame I can't seem to enter the door to the ruins but presumably they will come into play later?

- Following the next map marker, I find myself in a hella fancy old tomb with the very unfancy name of Grel's Grave.
It's a level of difficulty below where I've been lately, but it looks nice.

Spoiler: nice lighting in this crypt

All the tombs and ruins I've been spelunking lately that made me think, you know, maybe I need to get in on that. I'm undead too; my people just seem to congregate in picturesque ruins with endless waterfalls and stuff. All the Darkhand liches have sweet digs like that. Dzamael Darkhand had that prime real estate in the catacombs under Ark, even.
Grel's Grave is centrally located right in the breadbasket of Enderal, picturesque, lots of open space, all-natural wisp lighting… very feng shui.
Those old Enderaleans knew how to build for the afterlife. I feel like I could learn a thing or two.

- Working my way southeast into the mountains, the way is blocked by a much tougher band of Lost Ones camped out in some kind of unfinished defensive works. Watchtowers, walls, like a half-completed skeleton in the snow where the workers just gave up and died halfway through.

Spoiler: the undead here are pretty well-armed for presumably being the skeletons of dead carpenters

Near as I can tell, there are two passes through the mountains to the eastern half of the continent and they are held by Bandits and Undead respectively.
No wonder you never see Fallout- or Skyrim-esque wandering merchants in Enderal, anyone that's tried is dead as doornails. Some have tried, I think; every once in a while you'll see a busted up wagon along the road with bags of flour or apples or spare parts or whatever.
Considering how careful SureAI was to answer questions like 'but what do they eat?' with Ark's extensive farming community, I have to assume they carefully considered the economy and then recognized that all the wandering merchants have long since been killed and eaten.

- A stone's throw the undead-infested pass, there's a sweet-looking stonehenge overlooking the entire valley.
I boldly assail the historic landmark, defeating its denizens in honorable combat - this is the story that I will be telling around the Order's huge war operations table, later.

Spoiler: pictured: smart adventuring

- Not seeing any more new things to explore nearby on the minimap but not quite having my fill of adventure yet, I dig out the 'Portal To A Strange Place' that's been sitting in my pack since I found it under the city, as part of a little tale of sibling inheritance and what kind of sounds like a pact to enter undeath together.
The 'Strange Place' is just a clifftop peak overlooking what I think is Riverville, of all places. There's a few chests and a handful of wisp enemies, no big deal.
Kind of disappointed at the lack of further story, but I do like gushing about the views in this game.

Spoiler: this side of the mountain; farms. Behind me, dragon.

- Turns out I'm close by that dragon lair I first noticed all the way back from the quest with the Aged Man, so I start the laborious process of trying to scale halfway round the mountain.
I pop out halfway up a cliff overlooking the dragon's lair, which involves the dragon perched atop a triangular sort of ruin like a rooster waiting to crow. He periodically patrols out lazily in a circle before settling back on his perch, which is a pretty sweet idle animation.
I decide to get tricky. I'm at the extreme outer edge of my range, so I stop time (I can do that for 4 seconds at a time, now) and loft a bunch of arrows at him.
Of course, that only does about a tenth of his health in damage, and then trying to hit a dragon in midair is really hard, so…

Spoiler: for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup

Things didn't work out.

- Then I realize there's a 'Dead Dragon' skeleton nearby, and I think… a dragon-on-dragon kaiju fight might be just what the doctor ordered.
But unfortunately, Revive III isn't quite up to the task. And he notices. I'm still fumbling for my summons when I eat a fire breath and die.

- Third time, I just make an elemental to draw the flame breath, run up and bury both swords in the dragon's flank. That took care of things.
There is such a thing as trying to be too cute, I guess. It's lucky that the game makes the dragons land to fight you, or they would be really nasty.

- After that I headed for the castle on the horizon that you can see from the peak shot. That looks like a happening place, and I want to be there!

Spoiler: turns out that castle is really good at keeping out the riffraff

Unfortunately, nice sunsets are really all I get out of this little adventure. Couldn't find a way to scale the cliffs, so I just kind of lurk around like some sort of water monster for a while, slowly circling the castle.

- Getting back on track, I meet up with Jespar back in Ark.
Since I don't really want to just come right out and ask 'Hey Jespar are you sadistically murdering criminals maybe?' I engage in some light smalltalk first.
There's some philosophy traded back and forth about who's at fault in a domestic violence situation. My answer, 'society', is apparently the safe answer, on the grounds that it absolves people of responsibility for their actions.
Jespar seems ready for life as a lawyer if his primary job of mercenary-for-hire and his backup job of doom-train-engineer fall through.
Not sure what that's about, exactly, except maybe to lay the groundwork for what's probably going to be some weighty questions about the nature of Justice, later.

- The dropped bomb, of course, is that 'Knock knock' line we put together from the letters is a passcode he and his sister shared when they were looking to go out on adventures as kids.
The Prophetess points out with all the delicacy of a battering ram that the High Ones could have reached through the stone and given his sister Adalia the power – and crazy – to become something like the Bonejudge.
Which, if that's a thing they can do, Why am I still holding onto that one from Calia's quest? Why are we putting it in our anti-High One macguffin?!
This is all going to end in tears.


The Takeaway:
I've reached the point where just wandering around is starting to seem a little same-y. There's only so many undead and bandits you can clear out of ruined towers. I still have a couple of quests saved up in the old quest-log for when the main quest goes on break, but otherwise I think I'll be focusing exclusively on the main quest for a while.
And what an emotionally gutting questline it's shaping up to be! But then… this is Enderal. When is it not?

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

Hopefully Death is actually an anthropomorph in this universe, or whoever's in charge of posters for the Order is going waaaaay too far to try and rhyme that last couplet. 'Make you its child?' That's awful.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much. I hope at the very least that that 'death's child' is an euphemism for undead and not just a super awkward way of saying you'll die. Because that might make sense with what happened to you.

All the tombs and ruins I've been spelunking lately that made me think, you know, maybe I need to get in on that. I'm undead too; my people just seem to congregate in picturesque ruins with endless waterfalls and stuff.

Click to shrink...

Something about you having decided to think of the undead as 'your people' at this point amuses me, even if I think it's true. Hopefully the game will have a quest or something that lets you get your hands on a suitably scenic tower or dungeon.

Enderal's extremely dangerous landscape does indeed explain the lack of wandering... well anything, but merchants in particular. If you can't throw down with goatmen, undead, and undead goatmen, you should just stay in your walled town.

Of course, that only does about a tenth of his health in damage, and then trying to hit a dragon in midair is really hard, so…

Click to shrink...

That's why Lightning is the best element. It travels so much faster that hitting moving targets is way easier. At least in vanilla Skyrim. I'd use it to punch birds out of the air in that one town where they kept circling over me, casting winged shadows that triggered my 'dragon nearby' instincts. Kind of like a vet with PTSD and electric hands, I guess.

Which, if that's a thing they can do, Why am I still holding onto that one from Calia's quest? Why are we putting it in our anti-High One macguffin?!

Click to shrink...

Well, maybe if they can reach through, the anti-High One device needs one to let you reach back.

 

[Guile]

Something about you having decided to think of the undead as 'your people' at this point amuses me, even if I think it's true. Hopefully the game will have a quest or something that lets you get your hands on a suitably scenic tower or dungeon.

Click to shrink...

So far all I've found is a pair of houses in the capital, Ark. Kind of disappointing, really. What if I want to be a crazy lich hermit soothsaying the end of the world, huh SureAI? What then?!

Well, maybe if they can reach through, the anti-High One device needs one to let you reach back.

Click to shrink...

That would make lots of sense, except we're using the Black Stones as batteries.