Completed Let's Play Tyranicon's "Memoirs Of a Battle Brothel"

[NecroLord]

Tyranicon follows the Benioff & Weiss school of writing. It's all about subverting expectations. The whores are classy and hard to get, while other women are the real harlots.

Yeah, getting blue balled by a whore?
That's brutal...

 

[Dhaze]

Right then, now that our brothel's favor is vested to the Traditionalists' benefit, it is high time we endeavor to elucidate a certain problem.

In Saint Gorfu, we go meet with Shrike (remember her?) and she has good news for us.

Good news indeed. And after sharing her informations in full, but before we could leave her not-so-secret hideout, Shrike tells us, "Good luck, adventurers." Adventurers?

How dare you. I have been working so hard. Why, only last night, I had no less than twelve tacos with Hatsuo at the bar then a date with Windress, and when I woke up I fiddled at length with my jukebox.

Immediately the girls and I board the underrail to Cellerdown, where we are supposed to find a pillar of the underworld's community, a certain Linus who—we are warned—is "not a friend of the watch."

There:

Boldly, I try to lie my way inside, pretending Linus is expecting us. The guard does not believe me. I instill doubt in his mind, asking him if he really believes Linus to be the kind of man who shares every little detail with a mere guard. And it works!

Linus is... let's say not exactly a man of amenable nature, and to boot is passably annoyed by our unexpected intrusion into his facility. Needs be said though that, understanding well his predicament, and being not in the least ashamed of his work, in fact being misproud of it, he is surprisingly forthcoming with information.

Spoiler

As we had remarked upon first discovering them in Nena's warehouse, those yellow tanks look as if they could hold a human being; and Linus confirms they are incubators designed for humans. Of course my mind instantly jumps to the notion of humans grown in vats. Yet it actually is worse than that.

Narsum, the drug used some decades ago to treat unfortunate victims of the Crasher Crisis, now also exists in a new form named S-Narsum, of magistral potency. The means of fabrication for this S-Narsum being to extract the metabolytes resulting from the human body's enzymes having broken the drug molecules of Narsum down. Despite great efforts, said process has not been successfully replicated in a laboratory; thus the vats.

That is some cruel, Shirō Ishii type of stuff; though to Linus' dubious credit, Ishii wouldn't have bothered with the sedation.

I ask Linus for a list of his clients who, apparently, are all Shapers, given the numerous and deadly side effects of S-Narsum use by non-Shapers. He flatly refuses to provide this list; but reveals he has, through channels of his own, been tracking the individual colloquially called the Bloody Hawk, as he—Linus—fears he—the Bloody Hawk—might try and eliminate him. Given this Bloody Hawk is our prime and only suspect in Nena's murder, I'll gladly accept any information concerning him.

Once more aboard the underrail, and this time we are the ones bringing good news, proving that a bellyfull of Chicken Brothers' tacos makes for good adventuring fuel:

I show her the address Linus gave me.

Something tells me Linus withheld some details.

To the cloud-capt Spire district then, where a change of scenery has taken place since last the girls and I visited. The address given us by Linus is the gazingstock of a crowd, and constabularies guard the entrance:

I'm keen to trust in Zafra's instincts.

But as we now stand amongst some of MoonFall's richest citizens, Kaywin also needs voice a comment:

Different clothes? Meaning not the loose, ultra-narrow crop top under which your breasts—which look enticingly puffy and retroussé—constantly threaten to escape? Please, Kaywin... if I can't satiate my physical hunger for you, then let my eyes feast.

Of course, I want to enter the appartment guarded by the cops. But the female cop rebuts me, saying, "We're not letting anyone in a the moment, especially not a ragged-looking bunch like you." Going after my appearance? Girl, doing your hair that way, you look like a Ferengi.

Which reminds me of both the 168th and 48th rules of acquisition; thus I tell her, sotto voce and with the biggest of creepy smiles plastered over my face, that if I'm even allowed to breathe The Spire's rarefied air it must necessarily mean I am of some import—and it might be a good idea to not piss me off.

I enter the apartment.

Spoiler

And find Shrike, with a small contingent of officers bribed to the Old Watch's liking.

Curiously, Voss has left behind him the fruit of technological marvels: a projection of himself, complete with his full conscience up to the second of his very death.

Boor. In short, he explains his murderer—a man of nondescript appearance—simply tore him apart with powers over which only Shapers have command. As to the reason of his murder, he claims it is probably someone incensed by his writings.

He then starts philosophising more for his own enjoyment than for my enlightment; and his so-called philosophy speak less of an intelligent man often lost in cogitabund consideration than it speaks of a sixteen-year-old smoking his first joint and gazing heavenward.

But in closing, I get out of him a couple of cryptic, foretelling sentences:

Uh. But annoyingly enough, the game doesn't offer me the possibility to mention this Library to Shrike.

And finally, watching the footage of Voss' last moments does not bring us closer to our goal:

 

[Tyranicon]

Tyranicon follows the Benioff & Weiss school of writing.

I have never been more insulted in my life.

 

[BrotherFrank]

I completely missed some of this content in my own run, such as everything to do with Amy.

I do approve of your choice of siding with the Stormguard leader, as I said in main thread, ended up firmly believing she is the best ally and friend with benefits you can make in this game.
Plus you can totally tell she really does worry about you about the bug part, she can't outright tell you everything yet because she's a good soldier girl, but she really wants to so badly it melts through her demeanor, it's cute.

 

[Dhaze]

Since the hunt for the Bloody Hawk is well afoot and its trail hot, let's keep our noses to the ground.

Huzzah for the police. They discovered an old paper business card, burned almost in its entirety, on which 'Regency Health Clinic' was decipherable. It seems weird to me this card was somehow burned, as I've not seen any trace of fire in the apartment, and I wonder if it did not simply belong to Voss himself. But no, Shrike assures me; she asked Voss—or rather his projection—and he denied ever seeing it before.

This card sounds like the most painfully obvious bait, methinks, and Shrike is of a like mind. But she knows the clinic, knows it is not a good place in which to spring an ambush, and knows the people operating it, who belong to the Three Moons cult and help victims of the crasher virus.

Off we go, closely following Shrike, trying not to be too distracted by the suggestive contours delineated by her bodysuit.

Once at the clinic:

And Isutyr to add:

Right. More civilised. Like that syndicate guy who, holding to the old ways, wanted to literally feast on human flesh.

And now we have the pleasure to briefly meet someone new:

Hello Anashe, my dark sun. You have a stethoscope, I have an irregular heartbeat... wanna see how fast the latter can get?

She welcomes us to the clinic, but unfortunately I don't have the opportunity to talk to her before Shrike asks to see a doctor Weiyuan.

Spoiler

Hey, Tanka is still around! Tanka being Kaywin's former boss, whom I helped escape from the Saint Gorfu district on my very first day of work, while the cops were searching for him after putting the area under lock. At the time, he told me his reasons for trafficking were nobler than might seem; and now I guess I have the proof.

Damn it. Surely this won't lead us to a dead end? But at this point Anashe, via the internal speaker system, starts broadcasting—only to our room—her conversation with people back at the reception booth.

His name is, I kid not, Captain Harlock. Next, in Golgo’s sordid little surgical shop, I’ll find someone having recently changed gender, and named Saotome Ranma.

That's funny; the other night I heard that exact sentence spoken in the brothel.

The tread of heavy boots precedes the arrival of Captain Harlock and his troops, who are not at all in search of such llegal Narsum cache as can surely be found in this clinic, but quest after a man, Gushanese, in his thirties. "I will," Harlock says, "need copies of your security footage and intake records."

Drinking deep from the fount of loquacious eloquence, doctor Weiyuan answers:

Citing the confidentiality of patient records as protected by the NOCA Act, the good doctor refuses to cooperate. A detective, Jafesson (him with a red cap, who resembles a Pokémon trainer), strides forward and strikes her across the face, thereafter barely facing a reprimand from his superior. Tempers rise; spit flies by the globful; insults are hurled with utmost vehemence. Zafra speaks for all on our side when to one of the cops she says:

Still, a fight here and now does not seem the wisest. More than anything, I don't want the doctor, my one potential source of information anent the Bloody Hawk, to be hurt.

Alas the hot-headed and addle-brained detective from before reminds Captain Harlock that the people having ordered this raid on the clinic vastly surpass his meager authority. And so we have to defend ourselves in a fight.

A fight from which we easily emerge victorious. This being a good opportunity to mention the fact that, since the beginning of the game, I have not bought nor equipped a single found weapon or item of any kind. Each character still uses the starter gear, down to their plain everyday clothes; and there is not a hint of struggle during fights. But it's fine, as the game obviously is more interested in a strong narrative.

So then, we emerge victorious as I said. But cop reinforcements barge in, fingers on triggers; and mazedly I observe while events take a weird, at once dream- and nightmare-like turn.

Spoiler

The guns fire butterflies, of all things. After which a wave of something washes over all that is.

Hey... are you by extension calling me a rabbit? Not cool.

– "And you," says this strange man, while looking at Harlock, "you don't belong with the rest of... these. You are faithful to your work, but these other men, they are liars and thieves. Traitors, murderers, loyal only to those who pay the most. Wolves in the skin of dogs."​

Turning to Jafesson, and tracing arcane symbols in the air with his hands, the man continues:

– "You were in the realm of the mountain kings. Sand and rocks and the smell of burning flesh. The siege... that family. You took what you could and then you burned the bodies. Nobody ever knew... but this guilt, it sticks to you like caked blood.
"When I was young, they said this was the way of the world. The fierce eat the weak. That the actions of good men are lost like sands in the desert. And I've pondered this. But I'm no longer young. And I'm not a grain of sand. My will shall be the way of the world. And my will is to carry justice for those who cannot."

Reaching out to Jafesson with an open palm, the man then deliberately closes his hand into a fist, causing Jafesson's body to jerk like a doll on strings, to the hideous, muted cracking sounds of his bones.

In turn, all other officers save Harlock suffer a like fate.

Talking directly to Shrike, the man then restores her ability to speak and, with difficulty, she expresses great surprise, eventually asking, "Aren't you supposed to be dead? You're also skinnier than I imagined." To which he replies, "History usually lies."
​

A moment later and zwish! we are warped back to Shrike's hideout in Saint Gorfu.

Xai Revel. That's exactly the kind of names we'd find in The Clone Wars, like Savage Opress, Kinash Lock, or Cad Bane.

And just like that, it's ruined.

Tyranicon, let me try and put it this way, and hopefully I'll manage to well convey my meaning: so far, who this guy is was perfectly clear. Or more precisely: perfectly clear and unclear at the same time. From what I've read in-game about MoonFall's history, from what little I've learned about the cults, and from Xai's own quasi-monologue and actions a minute ago, I understood the following: he is a figure of eld, likely coeval with historical figures since then enshrined in legendry; his power as a Shaper at least rivals but possibly far exceeds that of anyone alive or dead; and the return of such a god-like figure as his will doubtlessly beget a great emotional tumult in certain cults, tumult that will then ripple along the fabric of MoonFall, possibly tearing at it in place.

So then, after the unavoidable and patronisingly insulting, "Please, remind the room who he is again?" what does Shrike explain to me? That. That, which I had already understood, but in different terms.

Don't take what I'm about to say as a straight insult, given there's an important caveat afterwards.

What you just did is something Brandon Sanderson—god, even just mentioning his name annoys me—does all the fucking time; and while he is monstruously successfull, I'll forever defend the notion he's one of the worst writers in existence.

In his books, he will systematically leave a trail of obvious crumbs, starting from page one then wasting ink over however many chapters his bloated books ramble on. Then at the end of said trail, he will summarise everything learned so far; sometimes in the form of a barely-disguised list, and conveyed via a straight internal monologue, or via one character spouting recapitulotary inthoughts at another character.

In doing this, he his basically saying to the reader, "And now I'll spell it out for you, moron, in case you didn't pay attention." I hate that man.

The caveat—the extenuating circumstances if you will—being this: that entire scene in the clinic, limned by the backlight of various little prior elements peppered throughout the game, was great.

So why then immediately diminish its effect, its accomplishment, with the wholly redundant and patronising explanations of Shrike? You did the work. You did it well. Trust your readers to understand it; and if they don't... fuck 'em?

Tyranicon follows the Benioff & Weiss school of writing.

I have never been more insulted in my life.

Imagine if Beniof & Weiss applied their treatment to everything touched by George Martin. In Elden Ring, you finally get to the Elder Throne, and Torrent one-shots Radagon; then Kalé is crowned Elden Lord.

I completely missed some of this content in my own run, such as everything to do with Amy.

I do approve of your choice of siding with the Stormguard leader, as I said in main thread, ended up firmly believing she is the best ally and friend with benefits you can make in this game.
Plus you can totally tell she really does worry about you about the bug part, she can't outright tell you everything yet because she's a good soldier girl, but she really wants to so badly it melts through her demeanor, it's cute.

To be honest, it's super easy to miss the first encounter with Amy. Realistically, there's no reason for the player to go into that corner of the map, and even then you don't actually see her and the photographs, only an exclamation point floating in the air which triggers the scene.

Concerning Dejah, yes, it really is so damn cute. Very endearing. I still don't know what exactly is in that bug by the way, and I can't wait to discover that in my second playthrough.

 

[Tyranicon]

You're starting to sound like I'm an actual writer instead of some guy who makes weird porn.

While I definitely try to put out a decent product, I'm not sure I'm there yet.

Despite your opinion of Sanderson*, I don't think I'm on the same level. It's a learning process, maybe I'll get there. Unlike... some gamedevs... I do like improving on the craft.

*which is probably well-founded? I tried several of his books and have bounced off each one. He just doesn't write in a style I prefer.

 

[Dhaze]

You're starting to sound like I'm an actual writer instead of some guy who makes weird porn.

Come now. It's no Jerusalem Delivered or La Chanson De Roland, it won't live in posterity and beyond still. And I won't pretend it's the style of writing I favor above any other. But unless I'm completely mistaken on what you were going after, it's certainly well-written enough for me to enjoy it, and to become annoyed when—in my opinion—you miss the mark or shoot yourself in the foot.

I don't talk a lot about combat for example, because while it is enjoyable in its own right, while you've obviously worked a lot on it, it is equally obvious you were intently focused on the narrative. So far I've been through what, maybe fifteen fights in total? Meanwhile, I've read a couple short stories' worth of text. If that's an accident on your part, it's one hell of a weird one.

 

[Tyranicon]

Appreciate that. I miss the mark a fair amount, which is kind of the reason I'm interested in blind playthroughs, it gives perspective.

 

[EccentricLecher]

Tyranicon follows the Benioff & Weiss school of writing. It's all about subverting expectations. The whores are classy and hard to get, while other women are the real harlots.

You pay for them one way or another. So that's not unexpected. And then there's Thassia who is even cheaper than all the other women considering you are practically her boss.

 

[Dhaze]

Tyranicon follows the Benioff & Weiss school of writing. It's all about subverting expectations. The whores are classy and hard to get, while other women are the real harlots.

You pay for them one way or another. So that's not unexpected. And then there's Thassia who is even cheaper than all the other women considering you are practically her boss.

The opposite! With Thassia, you pay with a part of your soul; that's the currency demanded, to buy yourself the opportunity to ravish an innocent angel who bakes slightly misshapen goods. Bless her heart—and curse my ever-throbbing parts.

 

[EccentricLecher]

Tyranicon follows the Benioff & Weiss school of writing. It's all about subverting expectations. The whores are classy and hard to get, while other women are the real harlots.

You pay for them one way or another. So that's not unexpected. And then there's Thassia who is even cheaper than all the other women considering you are practically her boss.

The opposite! With Thassia, you pay with a part of your soul; that's the currency demanded, to buy yourself the opportunity to ravish an innocent angel who bakes slightly misshapen goods. Bless her heart—and curse my ever-throbbing parts.

She gives you on demand sex whenever you want almost as soon as she meets you. WTF are you trying to do?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

WTF are you trying to do?

Build a relationship.

 

[Dhaze]

Unless one of you guys objects, I'll henceforth be eschewing the use of spoilers. At this point in the game even tiny details are technically spoilers; and besides, we're on page three of a Let's Play...

Continuing with the Bloody Hawk main quest and its mystical twists and turns, Shrike wishes for me to visit one of the Old Watch's ominously named Black Room. To be allowed entry in such a secret-shrouded place is a mark of confidence in me; still, the Old Watch are understandably the aldermost of cautious people whenas the subject of their most clandestines operations is concerned.

The first step of today's adventure—as I'm sure Shrike would call it—leads us brothel girls exit Saint Gorfu. At which point:

Mirroring my assocation with the Stormbreakers and the consectary reaction of the Iron Cartel, getting cozened with the Old Watch makes me suspect we'll soon be embroiled in some ruction or another with the Constabulary.

Given I am yet to give Kaywin the 5000 credits necessary for the car repairs, we then walk to the Industrial district, in whose vicinity we patiently wait at a certain pickup spot, this while the sun sets:

Ere long a black van brakes to a halt in front of us. Black-clad and balaclava-sporting men throw hoods over our heads. Sighing a sensual note, I jokingly tell them my safe word is 'genethliacal'; but these are men of a serious stock, and they do not laugh. Instead, if the pulsating and wave-like hum of instruments is any indication, they busy themselves with the scanning and general inspecting of our persons.

At length:

Once there, we see Shrike, in company with some dude:

And for a second they talk, briefly mentionning this man's involvement in the Zimalayan war, but also hinting at psy-ops ran by the Old Watch.

Oh that's right, he was indeed at the clinic's reception booth. Funny that; small world.

This Jack, then turning to me, says Shrike is trying to impress Revel. The game proffers me two questions: "You know Revel?" and "Who are you again?". Unfortunately a third option is missing: "What manner of obvious yet surreptitious shit are you two cookin'?"

Thus, while coil about me the thickening volutes of mystery whose waftures I am constrained into ignoring, Shrike explains the Old Watch holds, on site, a certain Patsy Hughes, former bookie for the Iron Cartel, blackmailer to the Constabulary, and—more evilly—a child killer. "Jack," she says, "I want you to see him, so you know how committed we are."

Trying to impress Revel and his highly idiosyncratic sense of justice (he did crush a roomfull of men to death), by way of torturing a child killer and alerting Jack—who was present there, in the clinic—to said torturing? Ok. I guess I can more or less surmise where this is all going.

"Anger," she explains, "hate. Everyone who's here has been wronged. Everyone here has suffered. We turned our grievances into a weapon, and by this alone we enforce justice in MoonFall."​

These wrongs inflicted onto the people thus being an ever-festering wound, to which talion law proves if not a pantagogue then at least a palliative.

When all of a sudden: intruders! Security lockdown is enacted; though a lockdown when the premises are already breached really isn't much of a lockdown. Members of the old watch escort Jack to where Patsy is held.

So who do we fight? For the most part, fans of the Super Sentai franchise. Two Power Rangers, namely Purple and Yellow; two fans of Moltor; a writer of Predator x Flurious fanfiction; and a Hattori Hanzo wannabe who lost her friends somewhere in the cosplay convention and now hangs out with another crowd.

Three fights later, we emerge victorious:

Post-haste we dart to the incinerator room, where we find Jack. The assaillants, whose origin will evidently remain a mystery awhile, blasted their way in through the walls, evidently hunting for Jack; and he was forced to defend himself:

The reveal falls: Jack is Revel. And curiously enough, only now does the game present us with Jack in all his S.A.N.D. (Sexy Accessible Neighborhood Dad) splendor:

Sploosh. You just know that somewhere in the world, a forty-year-old mom bought this game for some reason, and is jackin' it to Jack.

I say he is Revel, but that's not exactly true; he plays host to Revel. The latter remaining dormant, so to speak, most of the time, somewhere in the inmost recesses of Jack's mind. But occasionnaly Revel surfaces, more or less with Jack's accord.

In the end, Jack agrees to work concomitantly with the Old Watch. Shrike asks what will Revel—who has not manifested himself—think of this, to which Jack replies in the vein of 'my body, my rules'.

All right Shrike, ciao for today. Nah, no need to see me out, I'll just leave through the wall:

---

But now for a funny aside. At one point during the first of three previous fights I made Kaywin use, for the very first time in my playthrough, her Skill called Incorruptible.

Here I am, about to use it during the second fight (do note the skill description):

Immediately upon using it, each of my affected characters becomes topped by a strange, cascading succession of +3/+10/+3:

And Kaywin finds herself imbued with repeatedly usable, unlimited movement:

When I finally ended her turn, an enemy took his own turn and the game contemplated suicide; the combat started chugging to a frankly worrisome, slideshow-worthy degree. Evidently, Incorruptible does not at all work in the intended way, and causes some problems.

And every character, upon using a Feature or a Skill, sees again this strange cascade of numbers above her head:

Said numbers even appear over my last character to have acted, when an enemy does something or other:

And contrarily to what the description would have me believe, Incorruptible does not grant 'immunity to all negative effects':

Finally comes Zafra's turn to tour the room with unlimited movement:

And the final blow of that second fight, with a few too many unexplained numbers appearing on screen:

Heading into the third fight, Shrike is the only one to have somehow retained her buffs and debuffs, and the game gets confused enough the framerate drops to 0 for a solid ten seconds:

11/10, would Mechajammer again.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Incorruptible corrupts the game. What a twist.

 

[Dhaze]

Incorruptible corrupts the game. What a twist.

Took everyone by surprise, even the game itself. Again: it's the Benioff & Weiss school of subverting expectations. Tyranicon can refute it all he wants, but facts are facts.

In other news, I updated my version of Rivatuner and now—miracle!—it detects the game. So I might record a short video or two, or perhaps convert them into .gif since it would be more practical. And given the availability of respec. I might do a showcase of combat animations at some point in the future.

 

[Tyranicon]

I might do a showcase of combat animations at some point in the future.

If I ever get famous later on and people start documenting my early games, I have a feeling that the most common phrase about some features will be "Yeah, it's pretty shit."

There's a reason this game only took 3~ years of solodev to make, and not a decade.

 

[EccentricLecher]

WTF are you trying to do?

Build a relationship.

That makes sense. Then this game is very immersive. It's like real life! One night stands can be very cheap. But Relationships are insanely expensive!

 

[Dhaze]

I might do a showcase of combat animations at some point in the future.

If I ever get famous later on and people start documenting my early games, I have a feeling that the most common phrase about some features will be "Yeah, it's pretty shit."

There's a reason this game only took 3~ years of solodev to make, and not a decade.

You need to work on your self-promotion skills.

Take 'Phœnix Flight' for example. That teeny-tiny whirlwind around the character, and the quick fewfew! sound? That's not shit; that's absolutely adorable. I actually let out an audible awww the first time I saw and heard it.

Sure, I'll grant you the fact that 'adorable little animations' mixed with 'hardcore descriptions of penetrative sex' makes for a difficult promotional angle to push... but it's doable, I think.

 

[Dhaze]

JackRevel having sided with the Old Watch, and I being privy to this faction's affairs, Shrike has news for me:

Lead the way! I mean that literally, Shrike, please lead the way; I'm once again hooded and I don't want to twist my ankle or something.

I learn this guy, going by the 'Eagle' handle, is the only member of the Old Watch to whom speaks the Benefactor, whose plentiful moneys back the Old Watch's vigilante endeavors.

But the conversation is cut short, for Revel deems this an opportune time to surge forth from his vehicle:

Once more every atom in the room falls under Revel's absolute dominance; so that the air, as if congealed, precludes on our part any action, scarcely allowing us the shallowest breath. Turning to Shrike, he admonishes her, saying, "You did not see this snake in your midst? You are young, but I must question your judgment."

After apologising for thusly depriving me of the ability to act and speak, he eventually says the following:

Damme! so the Benefactor was the one whose secretive orders saw the Constabulary barge into the clinic. Secrets are aplenty. In some circumstances people use dehumidifiers; but here I'd like to buy myself a demystifier.

In the most cryptic tone, Revel then claims I know the Benefactor's identity. Hidden, somehow secreted away from even my own cognisance, sunk somewhere in my memories.

There is an explosion of color, a veritable prismatic blast of utmost vividity—followed by an eternity of black evoking the hadal. Then, a memory. Floating, dreamlike yet familiar, of my time as a courtesan, when I gloried in the admiration and lust men could but feel towards me.

Abruptly I am yanked out of that brief glimpse into a past I almost ignore. The better for Revel to submerge me into the distant waters of his own memories.

I recognise the trees as akin to the Ghost Tree in Amy Seagrave's penthouse. Surely then this must be Gushan; though I wonder if it might not in fact be Krondor, for there is betrayal in the air. Is made mention of a barrier holding this woman and her kin. Then I am witness to the instant just preceding Revel's willful sacrifice of himself, preventing thus the second moonfall from killing every one.

But just who was that woman?

He then explains that, as I already know, memories are sacrified when Shapers employ their powers. But those memories do not simply disappear, going as they do to a place Revel calls the Barren Wastes. There they linger, for an indescript amount of time, afore coalescing into "a mockery of a person." (this person would, I suppose, be the Shaper herself?)

Circling back to the woman in his memories, he tells me she was one of the first, a Primordial, now locked under the city, behind a keyless seal against which S-Narsum is being employed as a manner of battering ram. "Make the right choices," he says to me.

That I do right away, warning him of the incoming invasion by the Imperium troops; an event of whose motions he was of course already aware, and claims will fulfill the "prophecy of the chair." Rocking chair? Office chair? Baby chair? But the air was still thoroughly suffused with his magic, so maybe I misheard and he said "prophecy of the Cher," in which case we might be getting a reunion with Sonny.

Finally, turning to Shrike, he tells her:

Classic heroic villain-cum-villainous hero who, having grown powerful beyond the confines of man's ability to reason, has come to mistake his will for Justice—with a capital 'j'—and is utterly, almost comically oblivious of the fact.

Then, simultaneously, Revel whisks Eagle away while I and Shrike find ourselves teleported in her Saint Gorfu's hideout.

Oh yeah, a little thing learned at some point in the previous scene: Shrike is related to Revel...

Yeah. Sure. Probably inconsequential.

 

[Dhaze]

Left emotionally awrack by the discovery that memories of momentous parts of my past escape my mind's slippery grasp, I need to discard awhile the problems of the day, to keep them at bay via the comfort and closeness beget by company.

I ask Windress if she would like to go on a second date. Readily, she agrees. A talk at the bar would do me good, I explain, and I would like to learn more about her. But immediately she mentions my room and, almost despite myself, she drags me upstairs.

There:

Sure, go ahead.

I guess if you wan—

I quickly discover that where her eyes wander, her mouth is soon to follow. Anon I catch her gaze drifting netherward—and my anticipation is breathless. For a while she explores me, and the issues of the day are washed away by waves of pure, unadultered carnal satisfaction. Then, I reciprocate her attention, but ultimately she deploys the heavy artillery: a double-ended dildo. What followed is much too graphic for me to describe; at one point, instead of moaning I almost neighed, feeling as I did like a horse being ridden to exhaustion.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I wonder if it might not in fact be Krondor, for there is betrayal in the air.

 

[NecroLord]

I quickly discover that where her eyes wander, her mouth is soon to follow. Anon I catch her gaze drifting netherward—and my anticipation is breathless. For a while she explores me, and the issues of the day are washed away by waves of pure, unadultered carnal satisfaction. Then, I reciprocate her attention, but ultimately she deploys the heavy artillery: a double-ended dildo. What followed is much too graphic for me to describe; at one point, instead of moaning I almost neighed, feeling as I did like a horse being ridden to exhaustion

 

[Dhaze]

Tyranicon: what have you done, with the Abyss? So – much – damn – text! I just went through that part of the game in one go, and now I have a whopping 673 screenshots to trim into something palatable and understandable for a Let's Play.

Thanks. I'm still hoping to stumble on a bright, multi-colored puddle somewhere in the game, to shoehorn a Pool Of Radiance reference.

Right? I just wanted to talk. I've listened to everyone's personal problems, but mine remain unheard. I feel so alone in this game, and the sex is only making it worse by highlighting the schism between physical and emotional intimacy.

 

[Tyranicon]

Thinking very seriously about updating the game to change the ending to a giant troll just for Dhaze.

Something along the lines of evangelion.



Hmmmmm.

 

[BrotherFrank]

As an aside since one of your main criticisms about the writing was how characters could repeat info they already knew IC in a clumsy way.

This was one of the points where Tyranicon does it ok. Had you done another of the questlines that introduces you to that mysterious woman beforehand, the option to ask who she was would instead be "Was that....?" and then Revel would have been all like "Oh you already knew about her? Guess i shouldn't be surprised. Yes that was indeed x, she is y etc..."