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omgkalyppso · 10 months

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20 - Do you need me to carry you?

Okay this is funny because I sent this same prompt to someone else but for entirely different vibes than I'm about to write for you.

Additionally, I may use or entirely rewrite this moment for a longer fic at a later time. But I instantly knew which moment I wanted to write for this.

Cazador's dead bitch. cw for Cazador and Astarion history (very light). gore. blood tw. character death (Cazador and Lady Incognita). suicidal ideation. ends abruptly

The dissonant silence of the ritual site could hardly be called peaceful. The absence of the other spawn — now vampires, the quiet of the foiled archdevil, the departure of an unkindly and unlikely god, the dead of House Szarr, all left a unmistakable void — a hollow curse in the air that silently screamed for more, more, more. The air vibrated with magic unfinished, potential unrealized, satisfaction unsated.

There was nothing to be done for those Astarion had failed to save, for those he had failed to kill, for the years, and dignity, and power lost to him. Nothing to be done for the blessing of a god who had respected him only for what he had become in a fit of vengeance, who would have continued to feel no kinship with him had he remained a spawn.

The deep, pressing pain that ate away at his insides, aching with a vampire's hunger, was a reminder of his precarious balance on a scale of worthiness to every cosmic and societal scale that would measure him.

"Astarion?" prompted Lae'zel.

The sound frightened him into standing straight and dropping Cazador's staff, Woe, so that it crashed and clattered on the stone.

Her alien voice, her impossible presence here in Cazador's dungeon had him stammering, remembering his company and his purpose.

"Apologies, I just—"

Upon taking a step, Astarion, so accustomed to blood, and now awash with it, found that his boots splashed upon the floor, so sodden and saturated was the dais. His eyes widened in surprise.

"He will not come on his own," Lae'zel grumbled in concern.

"We have no need to rush him," Étoile said to soothe her, but all Astarion registered was that she was suddenly beside him, picking up Woe, and then striding away across the dais, collecting his ruined armor from where he'd — from where Cazador had—

"Astarion," Wyll beckoned. "I reckon civilization sounds pretty good about now? A bath and a bottle? Something to soothe the body and the mind?"

"Don't patronize me," he hissed, knowing the empty weight of the silent dead at his feet was the only reason Wyll would hear him, but he was more irritable as Lae'zel, approaching from his side, extended a hand, whether to drag him or comfort him — both were tantamount to the same invasion of his autonomy. He stumbled away from her before she came close, near shouting, "Don't touch me!"

Turning his face away to his feet, Astarion was faced with the broken body of Lady Incognita, the littlest Szarr and Cazador's greatest regret — aside from himself. He didn't turn his gaze back on the others as he stepped over her, towards them, whining as he went.

"Let's just ... go." He wrapped his arms around himself as he felt Wyll and Étoile's presence to either side of him as he passed between them. He took a few more steps before stopping to call over his shoulder, "This place reeks of death and I want to feel alive again."

Étoile nodded Lae'zel ahead, and she lightly jogged to get in front of Astarion, taking point on any remaining threats or servants they may yet come across, seeking the result of the ritual.

Astarion was grateful that at least Wyll and Étoile allowed him some space as he slowly made his way to the stairs, yet when his whole body wobbled when he lifted his foot to take the first one, it seemed Étoile couldn't be dissuaded from quickening their pace until they were immediately at his back, and Astarion sighed.

How strange to be separated from his siblings so soon, but not in death, to be among allies and betrayers. Cazador's voice rang in his head, disappointments he'd expressed from minutes past and from years ago, punishments, and promises, and praise for the most vile acts.

The companions around him had led him astray.

He was here of his own conviction.

He was a walking contradiction. He was weak.

Soon, after a rest, he would be a vampire, and possess all the powers that were denied to him, and be the strongest he had ever been.

The slick blood on Astarion's boots and the flat, featureless staircase in this subterranean hell did not agree with one another, and he slipped, and the part of him that remembered wanting to bargain with Cazador when he was in a charitable mood whispered in the darkest corner of his mind that he was right to fall, that he should have jumped, that such an end would be as one final command from his master. His siblings would know, somehow. They'd undoubtedly think it fitting, for how he'd flirted with ending their lives.

It was barely a fraction of a second, but still it was disorienting to be righted. Étoile had their closer arm around him, barely touching his shoulder, but their far hand had caught and squeezed tight on Astarion's wrist, forcing him to standing.

"Are you alright?" Étoile asked, firm, grip unyielding.

"Let. Go," Astarion said with more venom than he intended. He felt outside of himself as Étoile sighed and released his wrist. He attempted to wrangle himself. "I'm capable of a few more stairs, darling. I—" He huffed, the set of his eyebrows failing, a guilty sensation of a different nature constricting his throat. "Thank you."

Wyll whistled to stop Lae'zel from getting too far ahead, causing Astarion to squint in heavy irritation. Perhaps it wasn't that the air around the ritual site was stifling, maybe that was just his existence, now and forever.

"Astarion," Étoile coaxed, assertive and sincere, shocking his eyes back open. They looked pained, sad, but after ... other conversations, Astarion didn't imagine it could be pity putting that slant in their mouth, that hesitation in their body language. "I could carry you to the top of the stairs, if you wanted."

"No," Astarion blurted instantly, moving half a foot back before settling back in place, eyes tracking the movement of Étoile's hand when they reached out to his elbow once more, as if he were falling away again. They had carried him before, once or twice, but not like this, where the world felt surreal and his boots squelched with his master's blood.

"No," he said again. "I-I-I," his eyes sought the distant walls, the faraway cages, the yawning chasm, "I just need a moment."

"Here?" asked Étoile, not judgmental, but concerned.

Stilling his movements, catching their eye, Astarion nodded his assent.

This stair was wide enough to turn about on, and slowly Astarion turned again to look at the ritual far below. It was a nightmare. Not his, but someone's. It was everything he could have hoped for.

Steadily, Astarion lowered himself to the stair, sitting on this precarious piece of rock in a setting he was never meant to survive. If not for the mindflayer worm, if not for those who chose to be here ... he wouldn't have.

"Not an hour ago Cazador was standing there," Astarion observed. "He was ..." he scoffed. "Well, he was killing his whole family. But he was also pleading for a way out. He was looking to me for ... supplication. For clan. For understanding. And now? He's gone."

Wyll opened his mouth to respond, and Astarion heard the gasp of his breath that preceded a word, but Étoile, to his side, raised a finger to their lips, silencing him. The Blade of Frontiers nodded quickly, and Astarion wondered what he would say — what he could say in regards to the passing of the Gate's most terrible of vampires. It should have mattered to him, but Astarion could only feel the terror of the past few hours, the past ... forever, in his blood.

"I can't overstate what a permanent presence he was in — not 'my life,' the way you would mean it, as an occupant or an obsession. But in my very existence, at the core of myself," Astarion gestured with his hands, tapped upon his chest, and wondered about bearing himself so thoroughly. But with so much blood, tacky and fresh, decorating his skin, he felt raw and as if they'd seen the worst of him already. "How and why I lived? Every emotion tied up in every decision that flittered across my mind was for Cazador. How to escape, how to feed, how to feel, what to dream." 'To avoid his ire, to escape his attention, to appease his hunger,' Astarion told himself. "After all these years — these centuries — it's really over."

He could make out Cazador's gore among the rest in the massacre they were leaving behind, shredded as he was. His was the corpse in the most wretched state.

This would likely be the last time he saw any of Cazador, unless one counted having to wash the blood from himself once they were out of here.

Astarion squirmed. He recalled being unable to wriggle in discomfort as Cazador's hands traced his face, as his lips found the crook of his jaw, so close to where his punctured scars immortalized their connection.

'Fourth, thou shalt know that thou art mine.'

Astarion felt a horrible laugh bubble out of him, tears risking him again, but only just. Freedom. He never thought it would taste like this, half aching, half terrified, maybe more ... He reached into himself for the joy, to those unanswered prayers from a time when gods mattered, to the smallest, most hopeless parts of his undead heart, to make sure they knew, he was safe.

"What I've lost," Astarion observed, not looking to Étoile, but nodding towards them, "what I've gained — it's all so much."

#long post #astarion #oc tag: étoile #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 spoilers #my writing #i made this #the fanfiction i mean #barely edited #ask to tag

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farfromdaylight · 3 months

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i have a 600 person queue to chew through, so let's make another post.

i'm level 95 and have finished the third solo instance, plus a few quests after it (but not that far.)

this expansion feels very political in a way that's different from the previous expacs. ff14 doesn't really hide its politics and never has; it's always been a story about the power of friendship overcoming the most terrible of foes. and in that respect, it's very simple and straightforward. a little basic, maybe, but the core theme of "you should actually listen to what other people want" is very honest and true to itself.

wuk lamat wants peace. and peace is a wonderful thing to want, but what does it actually mean? it means looking at how your society is set up. it means looking at who has advantages, and who doesn't, and why that is. and then when you find out, you have to do something about it. a truly egalitarian society is a pipe dream, but it's the thought that counts.

that doesn't mean it's not worth trying. and even if you fail, you'll have learned valuable lessons in the attempt. this, too, is a constant refrain of ff14: you have to try, even if it's hard, even if you're not sure you're going to succeed. you have to put in the effort.

it's interesting how the claimants each display different parts of this struggle. koana's lust for innovation is all well and good, but there's no depth to it. bakool ja ja wants power for the sake of power, to justify but not right past wrongs. zoraal ja — well, i suspect we'll be getting more into him soon. i do not think he will accept defeat so easily.

and wuk lamat is so clearly meant to be the victor. this entire setup is perfect for her, and while she's plainly struggled along the path, she's still tried. she's given it her all, and she hasn't backed down even when it's tough. it's admirable, i think.

on the whole, i'm really liking this expansion! it feels very reminiscent of stormblood, in that the warrior of light is kind of just There and not particularly integral to the actual story. but after all the drama of the past two expacs this is nothing short of a relief. god knows we needed a rest.

some misc thoughts:

how the fuck is kenteramm still alive, lmao. i stopped msq right before going to his house (sidequests spawned and i had to do them) so i guess?? we'll find out?? most HD roegadyn i've ever seen tho, damn

i can Feel a twist looming. with the rite of succession nearing its end, there's gotta be something beyond "search for the city of gold" to carry us five more levels.

on a gameplay note, i have no idea when to use vice of thorns. it seems as though i have the freedom to use it whenever, which is nice, but i like a slightly more rigid burst window... i suppose i'll just use it after party buffs go out. other red mage changes are v good so far.

i did a leveling queue as summoner this morning to try and keep pace with red mage and lucked into the level 93 dungeon (the top one i could do, nice). these dps queues tho. killer. (i'd comment on summoner changes but l o l)

THE VALIGARMANDA TRIAL WAS FANTASTIC. i did it in trust (what a surprise! i never thought they'd do a trust trial again) and died when the boss was at like 12% health because....... i was trying to RDM LB3 and the avalanche got me and none of the NPCs broke me out of the snowball. THANKS A LOT, ASSHOLES. went fine the second time though.

as a red mage main, alisaie as your trust healer is fucking hilarious.

this goes without saying but the game looks so beautiful, goddamn.

i still have 83 in queue but i've run out of things to say. LET ME IN

#dawntrail liveblog #dawntrail spoilers #ffxiv

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apthotiosis · 3 months

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heyyy i see people offering you etoiles thoughts and unfortunately i don't have any that others haven't already said but i DO have Phil thoughts that i think you might appreciate ;3;

today i am thinking about how easily phil suffocates when there's nothing to do. it's not that he thrives under pressure, exactly, he definitely suffers when he's too stressed or chronically in danger, but he's built to Do something. he finds a problem and he observes and he tries to solve it: searching for Federation bases and the end of the train tracks, building Uppies in case his eggs need to hide, throwing himself into purgatory strategies. (in hc!Phil who's not constantly in danger we see him pushing himself with new and ever-growing projects mhm?)

and then when he can't do anything to Solve the problem he still has to Do something yknow? I don't think he ever expected results from lavacasting Fed headquarters, but he couldn't just sit there. He checked the anomalies for messages from his eggs obsessively even though it didn't get him anywhere any faster. He does dungeons with Etoiles to distract himself while the eggs are gone.

I think that's why the birdhouse/early EK stuff got to him so badly--he couldn't do Anything, he was only the object of other entities' actions. He starts to doubt his own convictions and agency after the birdhouse and he's a shell of himself.

anyway i'm also thinking about this because i think it's why i've found that Phil absolutely does not thrive when i put him in a modern AU. he is Not designed to have problems in a society where he has so little ability to control his environment. he has to be able to become a supervillain about it or have the weirdest hobbies imaginable otherwise he somehow gets even more anxious/depressed/neurotic than on regular QSMP. i put him in the suburbs and he starts chewing his own leg off like a fox in a trap.

thank you for coming to my ted talk i hope it was worth it but at the end of the day i just needed to say the words and thought you were most likely to enjoy them

*chant* sprout sprout sprout sprout !!!! banger of a ted talk ! i enjoyed it so very much (*¯︶¯*) phil thoughts are always just as welcome as etoiles thoughts . any and all thoughts r welcome @u@ im just not used to getting them direct to my inbox lmao

espeeecially with hc phil now going for the deep dark but making a massive project in itself , having his huge escape route (tho he did finish if sooner than he thought which , nice , but also sir , you can just set up in the cavern and have an escape tunnel down there.. but noooooo he had to bore his way to the surface -_-) . has to do something has to get the energy out , before during or after the stressful shit . the egg portraits near capitalist spawn ! r also a great example ! of stress but nowhere to put ! fuck it make Egg in protest

the birdhouse thoughts especially hurt ;-; can do nothing but eat gapples and punch walls . or tweet like a cute little burd and hope the feds let him out..

modern au phil ohhhh ! supervillain is a v cute imagine ! i always think of him in a modern au as a remote/shut in potato farmer with no internet and he has someone who Takes his potatoes to the market , he rarely goes himself . (do not ask me abt my reserve fitpac au bc it overlaps w my etoilesza farmer au and i . cant . start another story rn augh) but aaa !!! i ramble - absolutely out-there artisan phil ? love it . mb renaissance crafts phil . old ass printin press , mb forging ? but he 'got into it before it god trendy' ? leatherwork but he refuses to do like necklace thonging n shit , only makes pieces for obscure like , old farm tools or smth ! or tool handle wrapping , belt sheaths/tool belts . omg . hmhm so many options . never put him in the suburbs . goodness me . this man wil dig a tunnel system under the sewers just so he can do kickflips in peace

sprout u always make me pop off lmao ;3; thank you for the msg i loved it , i lov phil thoughts always

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dreamerking27 · 1 year

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I please request some Freeze for WIP Wednesday please? I would ask questions about the world but I know next to nothing, so any little pieces of lore would be neat. From "this is what roads are made of" to "magic y/n" I'd love anything!

This is a Dungeons and Dragons world! And you get the entire history of the world since you asked so nicely, although only the halfling stuff is new this week:

First Wake: gods arrive on the plane and create the first species, including dragons.

First Rest:

Crezoic Period: Aeorkin are created by gold dragons who wanted to prove themselves the Best at Goodness by creating an unpredictable population and teaching them how to be good. This does not work.

Huzoic Period: Silver dragons create humans because they can’t interfere directly without starting a war but they hope that humans would be able to break the system. Humans are immediately enslaved by Aeorkin.

Second Wake: Divine magic is created. Humans end Aeorkin rule.

Second Rest:

Chazoic Period: Primal elves and dragonborn evolve from Aeorkin survivors under the shield of gold and red dragons, respectively. With Aeorkin rule ended, humans spread across the globe. Chromatic dragons oppose this and create several monstrous races, including goblinkind, orcs, kobolds, bugbears, lizardfolk, and yuan-ti. Gem dragons create halflings–they are frustrated with the conflict that the other two draconic species have spawned and wish to create a more peaceful group of humanoids. They hope that the small size of the halflings will allow them to slip around the world and form safe havens that others can’t spot or won’t bother with. Because gem dragons work together as a whole group instead of halflings being created from a more specific color or metal, more magic is available, which becomes the source of halflings’ luck.

Setzoic Period: Primal elves leave the dragon shelters and establish communities on various continents, where they develop differently depending on their environment. Humans create the first nation-states. Copper dragons get bored of no one appreciating rocks enough and create dwarves.

Third Wake: First contact with other planes by non-deities. The deities open the plane as a haven for a few celestial beings, which has permanent consequences of making the plane more accessible to the rest of the multiverse. Changelings and other fey creatures begin to migrate into the plane from the Feywild. Celestial migrants create lupinal.

Third Rest:

Divizoic Period : The new proximity of other planes leads certain humanoid children to develop into tieflings and aasimar.

Isozoic Period (past 1000 years): Dragon-hunting becomes successful and dragons begin to retreat. Bronze dragons create the kuo-toa as they migrate underwater.

Fourth Wake: current period, although no one has actually realized that

#dungeons and dragons plotting #dnd #worldbuilding

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archetypal-archivist · 3 years

Text

My Beloved, Penis

Fuck it. I was infected by Penis SMP by @demonboyhalo reblogging a bunch of it and the lack of consistent lore bugged me, so I somehow banged out 2000+ words of fanfic about the Penis SMP and how it got started. Lots of internet humor and classic MInecraft shenanigans in this one folks. *slaps roof* This baby can fit so much crack treated seriously, lol. This is also up on my AO3, Zazibine, if you would prefer to read it there.

_-_-_-_

It was never supposed to get so big. It was just an SMP with a couple friends of his he had met from the Hypixel discord server, where he had logged on simply to trash talk the absolute asshole who had dared to kill him last minute in bedwars, only to stumble upon said asshole- going under the name shittyfartbaby69 of all things- complaining to his girlfriend(?) Milfboss in the voice chat. Thirty minutes later of awkward hellos and the manliest of bitching at each other (with Milf chiming in every once in a while to roast them both), and PenisUnavailable had perhaps his first Minecraft friend in, like, forever.

Then Admiral_Anus had entered chat, bitching about his competitor in ABBA Mining and his bullshit bad luck and the whole process repeated. By the end of the day, Penis had three new friends, a private discord server for the four of them, and a promise to meet up with them in Hypixel next Sunday for the ultimate round of bedwars.

The game went spectacularly. Somehow, Admiral had some of the best bridging skills any of them had ever seen, and between Milfboss' terrifying Scottish screaming and pvp and Shitty with his clutch TNT skills, the three of them almost made up for Penis' awful depth perception. They still lost around forty percent of their games, but that was certainly better than Penis' own abysmal record, not helped with his habit of walking off the edge at inconvenient times.

And it was... fun. Usually bedwars was just him playing in his bedroom alone for an hour before he rage-quit and went back to survival for a bit before he died to fall damage and rage quit that too. But shittyfartbaby69 would crack dirty jokes that he'd never even heard of before, and Milfboss would roast him for looking it up on reddit and Shitty would cuss her out as he tried to prove that no, he was being original- all while Admiral would comment of them as if they were a sideshow display. Then Admiral_Anus would turn around and knock an enemy player off their island with some clever pvp and they would all hoot and holler and swear for a while before going back to their conversation, joking about forgetting the topic and starting up a running gag about something new.

And their accents, mmm. PenisUnavailable would never say it, but he really was as American as white Wonder bread and Milfboss' Scottish brogue, Admiral's smooth British snark, and Shitty's shrieking in Australian, well. Ear candy, you know? Even if he teased them mercilessly for pronouncing shit wrong, like "buhguhr". Ppffttt, it still cracked him up how Milfboss had threatened to murder him after the dictionary app on his phone had proved him right that it was actually "Bur-gur", even if Admiral kept insisting it was pronounced "bruh-girl".

Four hours and twenty-eight wins later, they had agreed to meet up the next day to play again, preferably at an hour that wasn't two am for Shitty again. (It was two am for Shitty again, although that was because they played for six that time.) Eventually, it just became a regular thing, them playing bedwars and competing at ABBA Caving- the one game Penis was unnaturally good at, much to Admiral's annoyance- to the point where they ran out of funny jokes about their competitors and the game itself and started talking personal anecdotes.

Milfboss owned a motorcycle. Admiral, entirely independently, also owned a motorcycle, as that was the only vehicle of reasonable speed and style that could actually handle the London traffic. Shitty couldn't drive at all, something about never passing his driving test. Admiral ate cheese at breakfast. Shitty liked to burn his garbage in a metal oil drum in his backyard. Milfboss posted herself singing covers of shit over on Youtube. And it wasn't just real life stuff either- their minecraft skills were also on the table for them all to collectively roast.

Admiral had never seen a single Minecraft Championship. Milfboss thought a flat cobblestone roof was entirely acceptable. Shitty's favorite block was the flint and steel. (That's not a block, sixty-niner. Shut up, is too. OoOh, real clever, 'shut up'! Uh, how about no? How about I fuckin' make you, ever think 'a that? No nono nonono, I'm on two hearts! I'm on two hearts, stop!) It made him curious, honestly. He wanted to see Milf's builds for himself, get revenge on Shitty, see if Admiral really could beat the Ender Dragon with a knockback stick like he said he could.

So he made a minecraft server. And they all joined it. (And stuck PenisUnavailable with the bill, suckaaahhh~!)

Predictably, it all went to Hell in a hand basket pretty quick.

See, it's one thing to play with nutters like his friends in a structured set up like Hypixel games, it's quite another to try and keep a semblance of order in an open world survival server like the Penis SMP. The first five minutes had been him trying to explain the rules and teleporting everyone back to spawn over and over as they tried to "escape the cops," ie, him. The next five minutes was Shitty scream-laughing "scatter!" and other John Mulany references down the mic as everyone ran off to start their houses. Penis, as he was still "god" at that moment, used admin commands to find the closest flower field biome to settle into, hoping for some- ha- peace and quiet.

Shitty, inevitably, ended up trying to settle in the fucking Nether. Like a mad lad, you know, as you do when you are apparently obsessed with all things lava. Milfboss ended up making an oak plank box of a "tree house" in a dark oak forest, while Admiral_Anus picked a nearby swamp for his starter base. Outside of that, they just kinda vibed in discord as they tried to fend off the mobs and get enough resources to try and build up houses that were a bit more than cobblestone towers and wood boxes- er, mostly. Milf kinda just fucked off to go mining, found a skeleton spawner by chance, and made a set of iron gear to stand in the dungeon room with to just chill and kill mobs for a while. She ended up with something like 45 levels and burned her only diamond on an enchanting table so she could buff the Hell out of her iron weapons and armor.

Penis, rather typically, he though to himself, put together a basic sheep farm and started work on a cute little cobblestone cave base. He managed to get a whole twenty by twenty block room done and fully furnished before he noticed the chat full of Shitty's death messages and went to go investigate. After nearly dying in lava twice, he managed to find Shitty's pile of items floating on a basalt pillar about a hundred blocks out from his... base?

It was a soccer ball. Shitty's base was a perfect fucking spherical soccer ball made up of quartz blocks and basalt. Just. What. The Fuck??? Then out popped shittyfartbaby69 and it was PenisUnavailable's turn to misjudge a jump and plummet right into lava. Fifteen minutes and much shrieking later about losing his diamond pick, and it turns out that Shitty didn't really care about his lost items, as he really only had four gold picks, a stack of dark oak, two furnaces, a bucket, and thirteen cooked mutton to his name. Not even a bed, the fucker. He just ran back to his portal from spawn every time he just burned to death, taking the chance to gather resources on the way back each time.

And no, he wasn't following a tutorial for his "football" base. Jerk. (Although Penis did have to admire his determination...)

The day ended on Milfboss, Shitty, and Penis reconvening back at spawn to try and hunt down Admiral_Anus, who they found later having built a thirty block tall castle of all things. Out of cobble stone and the windows weren't quite even, but still, it was pretty impressive. And of course, when presented with a castle, what can what do but siege it? So they lay siege to the castle and Milfboss curb-stomped Admiral in pvp and laid claim to the throne, crowning herself queen before summarily throwing the rest of them out. It was a good day.

And the day after was a good day. They played dodge ball crossed with hide and seek in forest around Penis' house with arrows supplied by Milfboss. And the day after that, too, where they had a building competition using nothing but cobble stone, specifically to spite Milfboss, who had kicked all of their asses the day before. In fact, three wonderful weeks passed of doing normal Minecraft shit and being friends passed by, and every bit of it was great fun.

And then came the fucking role play.

PenisUnavailable would have liked to preface that with he only participated under duress, but really, Milfboss had been queen for too long and nobody wanted to risk TNT cannoning any of Shitty's nice builds, so. Well, the castle was better than his drafty cave, alright? It was cold and wet and didn't have a proper door because aesthetic (and because it usually took him several tries to work an iron pressure plate door), so there were far too many mobs wandering in at night and spawn camping him. He and Shitty had almost the same number of deaths and Shitty lived in the fucking Nether.

So yeah. Castle time, baby! Daddy needs a new home! And Admiral obviously wasn't happy living out of Milf's awful tree house hot box where they all did drugs together on day fifteen and it still smelled of burnt wheat seeds, aka "weed." It was only obvious that they teamed up to try and take back the castle.

The battle itself didn't exactly go great, but it wasn't exactly horrible either. A lot of shouting shit at each other for fifteen minutes, the majority of which he wouldn't remember until it was too late- something about server unity?- only to find out that it wasn't two on one girl boss, it was two on a girl boss and her "baked out of his mind" henchman, also known as Shitty in a squirrel furry skin.

The ears man. Those stupid (cute) ears.

And then they were running for their lives because Milf had somehow gotten her hands on a flame bow with infinity enchants.

It all culminated in a dramatic stand-off in front of Shitty's Nether Soccer ball, Milf on one side, diamond axe in hand, not a bit of armor on because of an unfortunate run in with lava, Penis and Admiral on the other, picks in hand, threatening to tear down shittyfartbaby69's base. Shitty wasn't online just then to comment, but they could all hear him click-clacking away on his keyboard so he obviously hadn't gone to sleep just yet like he said he had. At an impasse, and unable to justify letting her teammate's home be used as collateral, Milfboss stood down and gave up her "crown," an enchanted golden Prot IV helmet she had gotten off a skeleton from her spawner.

Then the great betrayal, the beginning of the end. Shitty came back online. 96-Cam joined the game, not that they noticed in the chaos. Admiral-Anus cackled wildly and PMed Milfboss the message that Shitty had sent him, giving Team Gay Sex permission to tear down his base in the name of winning the war if it came down to it- making Milf's sacrifice worthless in the end. Penis gave another dramatic speech, circling around Shitty, who was acting weirdly apologetic to Milf about betraying her and still wearing that fucking squirrel furry skin.

"You see Milf, there's one thing more powerful than a girl boss, and when it comes down to wars between kingdoms, there's something you need to remember!" Penis got out his golden ax, helpfully labeled 'Piss Off'. "And that's a dilf with something to lose!" An enderpearl in his off hand and he teleported behind Milf, catching on fire from the lava but still landing the last hit needed to finish her off. She puffed into a cloud of EXP, swearing up a storm, and then Admiral and Penis turned their gaze to the cheering Shitty.

"AAAAAYYY, LET'S GO DADDY!" the squirrel man screeched, wild laughter shorting out the discord voice chat, making him go quiet in patches when the volume overloaded the client. Behind him, Admiral quietly started building a chair out of birch fence posts and slabs.

"Not so fast, shit-ty-fart-baaaaa-byyyyy~, this isn't quite over yet!" Penis fucking chirped, barely holding back his laughter. "You're still a fucking traitor and we can't have you backstabbing us too. Get in the chair for Daddy, okay baby?"

Admiral finished the chair just in time for Shitty to turn around and see the completed monstrosity, shrieking dying off immediately. "Oh screw you, that's just mean. The Hell man? That's not a chair, that's illegal. If you want an electric chair or some shit, just ask. That's just sad." Mentally shrugging, Admiral lit up his work with a flint and steel while Penis pillared up above where Shitty was building an electric chair out of iron bars and trap doors. Admiral nudged Shitty into the chair, Penis dumped a bucket of lava over the edge of the pillar so it flowed over him, and Shitty started giving a soliloquy about how betrayal and how his love for his "Daddy" still "burned strong".

Like his dick. Apparently.

By the time the lava finally hit the floor and burned Shitty to death, Penis was crying with laughter, shrieking down the mike and banging on the desk hard enough to make him forget that his was still on the mouse, making him mine the block under him with the bucket and sending him hurtling to his fiery death too.

It was a good day... almost.

Because, as it turned out, shittyfartbaby69 was actually a tiktokker of some renown and his cam account had record everything. And he had uploaded the bit to tiktok, as you do, where it went viral, where it wasn't supposed to. And Milfboss, who had recently been uploading covers of herself singing old classic Minecraft songs, had attracted the Minecraft fandom kids to her twitter, where she had gone to post her rage about the events of her dethroning and Shitty's execution.

Penis SMP had gotten on. Fucking. Trending. And now everyone was demanding the full clip, their names, their Twitch streamer handles, their characters' backstories.

The masses wanted lore.

Penis watched in disbelief, head in his hands and mouth agape as sugar crash played over a clip of him killing Milf on loop.

They were making memes.

...Oh god. They were screwed.

#penismp #penis smp #fanfiction #minecraft #my writing #crack #crack treated seriously #also on ao3 #penisunavailable #milfboss #shittyfartbaby69 #admiral_anus

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the-kharnival · 3 years

Text

I've decided I'd blog my modded Minecraft world, because why not. This is more for myself to record what happens in the world. It has been four days(?) so far.

---

Started: Aug 1, 2021

First day in, instantly on the run from two guys from a nearby, tall building I suppose. I found some free real estate and now the loot inside is mine. I got wood, a wooden axe, and food from the chest and set my spawn. Maybe some cobble? I was too scared to go back out in the world, so I broke my floor and went mining. I eventually came warily into a cave system, and I found a dungeon. Oh! I know that little shrine in the middle, the gold blocks, redstone torches, the tower and that little blind steve... As any person would do, I clicked the head and Herobrine himself spawned into the world. He killed me instantly, as expected.

Running back down into the cave, Herobrine was gone, but his minions and my stuff was still there. Nice.

I took care of the minions and continued my mining, though wary.

Herobrine hasn't bothered me since. Maybe the man broke? I have no idea.

Back on the surface, I needed wood, so... Time to go outside the house.

It actually wasn't that bad... I got my wood, and ended up going up the side of this biiiiggg tree. Oh! At the top, two diamond blocks! Anndd... These are kind of common, the big trees. Huh. I guess I'm rich! Wait... All that mining for three diamonds was a waste?

Back on the ground, I saw a large turtle, some weird mob I don't know how to describe just hanging out, and a apple guy with a backpack. I approached the apple guy with caution, and turns out he gives free apples. Naturally, I pressed the button for the free apples, and wow! Free apples, red and gold alike! At this point, I figured out I could spam that button. As the thought "this is op" ran through my head, uh, I accidentally hit him. And that killed him. o7 so sad. Lil man was awesome...

I then went to see the large turtle with the large thing on it's back and OH GOSH IT'S HOSTILE. It pelted me with multiple projectiles at once instantly, so I fled.

At one point, I died after I tried fighting something. I didn't realize it was going to be much stronger than me, and no I don't know what it is.

I couldn't leave my house because there were two mutated pig guys trying to kill me, but after a thousand hits it seemed like, I was finally able to kill them and retrieve my stuff, then I killed the thingy. I was down to nothing, but I was able to get my stuff back and now I have stuff again.

I noticed in the distance another tree with two diamonds beside a big... Ship? On land? Oookkaayy. I gathered all the blocks I had and headed that way.

And oh? There's a weird creature thing on the two diamond blocks. Is it hostile? Maybe...

I checked out the ship and figured it was too over my level, as there were enemies and yeah I was cowardly. So I built up to the thing on the two block high diamond pillar.

Turns out, it's a distorted dog! I placed blocks to see if it'll try to tag me, but thankfully, it's actually pretty peaceful. Caught up at this point...

Now, I wonder, can I tame that distorted dog? What is my goals for this modded world? I decided to call the world Tyrakk, but I might change the name.

Distorted dog is my best friend, he's my profile picture, here's a picture of him.

It is my goal to take over that building in the distant left.

Other info:

This world has like, 28 mods on it? And yes I'm playing it on my mobile phone, but its surprisingly not laggy. It just takes 5-15 minutes to actually get in.

All this info is from memory after having not played the world in weeks, and I probably won't for another while, as I'm busy... but I really like it so far.

#minecraft #mcpe #modded #journal

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merelliahallewell · 5 years

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Drustvar and the Light (my desperate case for Kul Tiran Light worship)

A while ago I wrote a post for /r/warcraftlore (that got expanded into a forum post) that examined religion in Kul Tiras in each zone. Some new things have come out since I wrote it and so I wanted to update it and post it here. It mostly focused on the Tidesages and the new lore we’d been given with them (BfA had just come out), but also poked at Tidesage influence in Tiragarde.

Drustvar, though, was interesting to look at. There’s no Tidesage influence to speak of anywhere in the zone- not a single NPC or building they use for their religion. this could be attributed to how most of the zone seems to be fallen to the Heartsbane Coven (and the Tidesages could be among those killed). Even in Fallhaven - which had yet to see any deaths to the witches and is close to the sea - there is no Tidesage. This one’s a doozy, continue under the jump.

On top of the curious lack of their presence in Drustvar, there’s also burial practices to consider- usually strongly tied to religion. In the Tidesage religion, burial seems to be less important than the collection of souls- to lay their dead to rest in Stormsong Valley, the Tidesages perform a ritual to let the souls flow through the Shrine of the Storm. There are no graveyards throughout the entire zone there, only tidesage markers for players to spawn at. Tiragarde Sound has some graveyards, but they are small and many of them do not even have stone grave markers, only wooden ones.

Drustvar, once again, is the odd one out. Not only does it have numerous graveyards, but it has Kul Tiras’ largest cemetery, Barrowknoll. In Barrowknoll, there is a small quest chain dealing with the Coven raising the strongest spirits of the dead (the Defenders of Drustvar) and putting them into wicker constructs. It seems that here, the souls and bodies rest together- meaning they are not released into the sea by Tidesages at all.

Overall, Barrowknoll is quite reminiscent of the places that Light-worshipping cultures lay their dead to rest, as shown behind Stormwind Cathedral, in Gilneas, at Sorrow Hill and Light’s Hope, and even the redone Arathi Highlands. It features the entrances to crypts (though they are blocked off by gates), and gravestones that are overall of high quality, unlike the simple wooden markers we see in Tiragarde. Most importantly, it resembles Forgotten Hill in Tol Barad- an island once under the control of mages from Kul Tiras.

One last curious burial bit is out in Corlain’s graveyard, on the other side of Drustvar. While most of the gravestones there are the standard models used in Whitegrove, one particular one stood out because paladin players walk past it in their class hall. It features a hammer and a libram- a statue that is meant to mark a paladin of the Silver Hand. Considering that Blizzard created brand new models for gravestones to use in both the Arathi Highlands and Kul Tiras, it strikes me as strange that they’d unintentionally place a single paladin’s marker in a graveyard in Drustvar. We may have had a paladin hail from Drustvar at some point and be buried in their homeland.

There’s more beyond simple burial practices, though. I mentioned the Defenders of Drustvar before, who were powerful spirits being raised by the Coven who had presumably been past heroes. Among them is a woman named Mercy Fairwater. She is one of the few NPCs in Kul Tiras to mention the Light expressly, saying “Light’s Peace be upon you, class.” She also bears the Greatstaff of Righteousness, a staff that features the symbol of the Church of Holy Light as a headpiece. This symbol is on various weapons associated with the Church, and Archbishop Benedictus even wielded these weapons in his fight underneath Wyrmrest.

Another NPC of significance is Inquisitor Erik, a mob added in 8.1. He is a member of the Order of Embers and spawns sometimes for Horde during their world quests. He is dressed in the garb of an Order of Embers inquisitor, yet his attack spells are Crusader Strike and Holy Smite. These are both Light-based attacks… could this really be just a coincidence?

Cleric Loriette is another 8.1 NPC, added from the outpost upgrades you can purchase from the 7th Legion vendor. She is added to Arom’s Stand, and can cast a buff on you called Blessing of the Order of Embers. Clerics are not an uncommon thing in Azeroth- there are the Clerics of Northshire as the most prominent ones, as well as Argent Clerics, Dark Clerics, Alliance Clerics… the list goes on and on. Nno matter what, these clerics are always religious in some manner, usually related to the Church of Light or the Cult of Forgotten Shadow. If Loriette is casting a blessing spell as well, something usually done in Azeroth by priests or paladins, it would seem that perhaps Light worship is implied. The spell effects seem to be orange and almost fiery, perhaps reminiscent of holy fire.

There are other NPCs too that seem to suggest some small level Kul Tiran Light worship, or at least ability to use it. While not based out of Drustvar, the Tol Dagor dungeon features Ashvane-aligned priests who perform the spells Inner Flames and Righteous Flames. The former has a healing effect, the latter is a damage spell. Inner Fire was a once a priest spell.

One last major point comes from Warcraft III: Reforged. While people expected some parts of Warcraft III to be “reforged” per Blizzard’s original word on it, there was also a lot of expectations that minor elements would also be changed to fit with recent lore- such as the Kul Tiran Chaplain unit from Daelin’s forces.

These light-wielding priests would have been perfect fodder to change into a Tidesage to fit with recent lore, yet the released models suggested a continued focus on the Light. The solar iconography of the staff’s head and the golden trimming of the gear makes it pretty clear that they are still using the Light. Since these models are unique and only meant for certain portions of WCIII’s story, there is no reason they could not have replaced them with Tidesages to fit with more recent lore. In my opinion, this is a pretty clear sign of at least some light worship being present.

Overall, it strikes me as strange that a region that’s primarily mountainous would look to the sea for guidance like the rest of Kul Tiras. Tidesages often bring the rains for crops in Stormsong Valley, but Drustvar has a number of streams and rivers to provide freshwater to its farming regions, and a large amount of snowmelt to feed them. Drustvar’s fishing villages are in disarray for the most part, and so the other part of Tidesage functions (blessing fishing and monster hunting trips, saying where the fish are biting, etc) are simply not present, but that may be more due to Coven attack than them not being there. With water needs taken care of and little ability to fish in the sea save for on the coastal villages, many part of Drustvar just do not have need for those portions of a Tidesage’s duty.

Unfortunately, there are a total lack of religious buildings in Drustvar to confirm or deny the possibility of Light worship. Whitegrove Chapel features no priests to speak of and is overrun by monsters when we arrive. Even going back in time reveals a wedding officiated by Lord Waycrest, rather than a Tidesage or priest of the Light. ”It is my honor to wed these two in the presence of the land, the sky, and the sea” doesn’t particularly sound like the words of a Light worshipper. Since this seems to be a nonreligious ritual conducted on his authority as the lord of Drustvar, it’s hard to know either way.

Given what’s been displayed between burial practices and NPCs, I’d like to think this post makes the case for some level of minor Light worship in Drustvar- it’s certainly nothing like Stormwind or Lordaeron, but I think that there’s some evidence it exists in the region.

5/15/21 UPDATE:

Hey so there’s more lore. Also, I updated some grammatical errors in the post because I abuse commas. All tiny, little snippets, but that’s sort of what Warcraft roleplay relies upon, right?

This comes from the “Total Cairnage” quests in Drustvar or whatever that chapter is called where you help the thornspeakers and rangers. This lady says this. Not much to say here, it is pretty explicitly Light-related.

This next piece is an interesting one I came across recently when looking up Arom Waycrest’s story. He would have been either a Gilnean immigrant or descended from them: the stories aren’t clear about how long the war with the Drust took, but it does seem to have been a long-running thing. Either way, the worship of the Light, per Chronicle 1 and 2, had begun long before the settling of Kul Tiras. However, what is important to mention is that the Church of the Holy Light did not exist for some time after the Troll Wars, several centuries.

The date of Kul Tiras’ founding isn’t entirely clear, but it relies on Gilneas existing and being established as a kingdom. Because of this, it’s entirely possible that the Gilnean settlers might have brought the early, pre-Church worship of the Light with them across the sea (but it is important to remember Kul Tiras was discovered by the Stormsongs, who were led there by the Tidemother). Arom, from this quote from a story about him, may have revered the Light. The Light being brought over to Kul Tiras without the Church element might explain why there’s no real organized reverence of it there.

But also, this is a story being told to kids from 2600 or so years ago, so who knows? Maybe it’s not true, and the narrator is unreliable. Also, “light” is not capitalized as a proper noun, but nobody really says “by the light” in this universe without the explicit reference being to the magic.

The last thing is not canon, but is an interesting follow-up to the Reforged Kul Tiran chaplains. This is a Kul Tiran Chaplain art piece from Hearthstone by Vladimir Kafanov. While Hearthstone isn’t canon, I found it interesting that this piece was done in March 2020, when BfA was almost over and Reforged had, uh... decided not to “reforge” elements of the lore because they abandoned the game. He wears Tidesage vestments and bears the mantle with the scrolls, which are very important in that religion. But he’s using the Light. Creative decision, blending of lore, or silly noncanon hearthstone thing? Who knows, honestly?

I hope that this post and the new updates might have made enough of a case for a minor Light presence on Kul Tiras. The Tidemother is still the dominant religion, but I personally see enough evidence here to include it in my own roleplay and headcanons.

#Drustvar #Kul Tiras #Light worship #please i need this to be canon #Warcraft #Lore deep dive

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nelvana · 5 years

Text

In which the cave of the judge is explored

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which the judge is spoken to Previous: In which there is an entry test

Warning! This chapter has descriptions of blood! Reader discretion is advised.

“I still don’t understand what made him think to give this to me; he said I failed the battle,” Gengar said for what felt like the hundredth time since they had left Mienshao’s dojo.

“He was testing for you something else,” Nelvana sighed, long tired of hearing those doubts. “Maybe even the same thing Ninetales said you didn’t have. Consider this a good thing. We have the crest and even some directions now, that’s good.”

Gengar huffed, flipping over the crest in his hands. The other side, as they had discovered, was darker in color than the top, and lacked the three red gems that decorated it. He kept flipping it over and studying the object restlessly. It had been placed in the bag as they had left the building and headed off again, but he had since then taken it back out to continuously look over.

“It’ll go fine,” Nelvana assured him, “oh, this must be the place…”

Since leaving Mienshao’s dojo, they had wandered through fields dotted with trees every other few meters before the forestry grew more crowded around them. Now they had managed to find there way over to what at a glance could be passed off as just a boulder covered in moss with some more trees growing nearby. But they could tell this was what they had been looking for. One side of this “boulder” was clear of moss and flat just like a wall, with a single indent shaped like the crest Gengar was still holding.

After a moment to look this over, Nelvana nodded Gengar towards it. He paused, and then stepped forward and placed the Fallen Angel Crest in the indent in the wall. With a loud rumble, the wall slowly slid away to the side, disappearing behind the other rock and moss around it.

Now that nothing was in the way, they could see that the inside of this dungeon was dark aside from some bioluminescent mushrooms growing from inside. It resembled as if it had once been perhaps a stone building, but had since decayed to ruins and overgrowth. What had been fine limestone walls were now dull and cracked, with roots crawling out between them. The cobblestone flooring suffered a similar fate, with grass attempting to grow through without that much success. Between the glow of the mushrooms and a thick, low hanging fog, everything was bathed in an odd purple.

“Well, here we go,” Nelvana murmured, “Murky Cave, here we come.” She took the first steps into the dungeon, waving for Gengar to follow. “Stay close to me for this one, alright?”

Gengar nodded, not that Nelvana was looking behind her to see him, “got it,” he replied, following right behind her.

Once they had gotten a few feet into the dungeon, they could hear the wall begin to groan and slowly slide back to where it had been before. The pair spun around at the sound, and Nelvana hurried back over to it. She swiftly reached around the wall and tugged the crest back out, pulling her arm back inside before the wall completely closed.

“Looks like we’re really in this now,” Gengar commented, blinking to adjust to the lighting.

“Yeah, but if all goes well, we’ll be using the badge to get out of here,” Nelvana responded, walking back over to him. “Plus, I got the crest back too, if we ever need to come back here for… whatever reason.”

“Oh! Good thinking,” Gengar exclaimed, “can I hold it in the bag for now?”

Nelvana nodded, handing the Fallen Angel Crest back to Gengar, “sure, just make sure not to lose it.”

“I’m not going to lose it, come on, have a bit more faith in me than that,” Gengar hissed, accepting the crest back and carefully placing it back in his large bag. “Alright, whatever, let’s get going.”

Nodding again, Nelvana proceeded into the depths of the ruinous caverns. Not far around the first turn, they discovered that there were some pools of water in some spots, glowing with the same bioluminescent energy as the mushrooms still growing around them. Neither of them recognised what this liquid could be or what had affected it to make it shine in this way, but they both silently agreed to do their best not to touch it.

The next corner ended any sort of peace that was being held, as a roserade leapt out in front of them. The sweet scent from the grass-poison pokemon cut through their senses, causing Gengar to relax. Nelvana shook her head, trying to clear her mind, before lunging forward and headbutted the dungeon spawn, who hissed in response.

Not quite defeated and still raring to battle, the roserade created thorny whips from their arms, snapping them at the cubone. Nelvana used her club to block, not willing to risk the poison that this attack was likely laced with. She headbutted the roserade again, managing to finish them off.

Gengar blinked, the aroma fading from around them with the dungeon spawn now gone. Nelvana glanced back to him, checking to see if he had recovered himself, before she continued forward into the next room.

This room wasn’t as large at the actual dojo room at Mienshao’s place had been, but it wasn’t much smaller than that. Aside from a small pile of coins off to one side, the room stood void of any items or pokemon.

“Wait, what was that?” Gengar questioned, rubbing his head and following his escort.

“The roserade line attracts prey with the smell from their flowers,” Nelvana told him, “we’re just lucky they have bad defense and this one happened to go for the whips over trying to poison me.”

“And you could just ignore it; that smell? If it’s because of your type, I am a poison-type so that should have given me some sort of advantage,” he pressed.

“I have experience with pushing through that sort o- Ack!”

Nelvana flinched as the ground she stepped on suddenly revealed an odd tile under her feet; her distraction causing her to miss spotting this trap ahead of time. The tile had a question mark on it, and before they knew it, four more pokemon had suddenly joined them in this room.

“Dammit! Pokemon trap, get ready!” Nelvana warned, brandishing her club offensively in front of her.

A toxicroak was the first to attack, leaping towards Nelvana with a hand raised and venomous knuckle claws ready to kill. She shifted her position, readying herself just in time to whack her opponent away with all her might. The dungeon spawn was flung backwards, landing on the floor a few feet away and sliding backwards afterwards. They slowly began to rise back to their feet a few moments after landing, though their struggle to do so was evident. The toxicroak’s sac on their throat began to bugle and swell with poison as they began croaking and trying to drag themselves back into the fight.

For now though, the muk right in front of them was Nelvana’s next opponent. She stepped backwards and swung her club down on the giant, living pile of purple sludge. It didn’t go down in one hit either, but fortunately it was slow, and the second ground-type attack made it disappear in defeat in a flash of light before they had a chance to try landing their own first move.

The third pokemon that had spawned from the trap though, a skuntank, seemed less interested in attempting to battle the cubone, and set their sights on Gengar; who was beginning to look like he would rather be elsewhere. Their claws shone a dark purple, and they reared up on their hind legs to attack, but missed their mark when their target disappeared and reappeared onto the other side of the room.

Unwilling to give the skuntank to figure out that Gengar hadn’t actually gone far and was dazed momentarily from teleporting, Nelvana stepped up towards them next; but not before realizing that the toxicroak was still crawling over to her, and using bonemerang to finish them off before they had the chance to become a problem. The skuntank sprayed out a vile fluid from the tip of their tail at her, which she barely managed to duck in time from the poison, which splattered on the back wall of the room.

Standing back up fully, Nelvana made her first swing at the skuntank, hitting them square in the head. The second hit, however, the skuntank managed to catch in their teeth, forcing her to headbutt them instead to make them let go.

“Uh, got a problem over here!” Gengar called out.

Four pokemon had been summoned with the trap, and now the last of them, the crobat, had decided to set their sights on Gengar like the skuntank had tried to. Unlike the sluggish muk and slow skuntank, this was a swift pokemon, giving Nelvana no time to change her opponent over to them, especially when this close in melee already.

The crobat spread their wings, speeding towards Gengar. In retaliation, he tried using his sucker punch attack to throw them off, but the dark move barely seemed to even make this dungeon pokemon react, and they continued on course all the same. Their wings sliced into his side as the crobat flew by, making a clean cut that drove deep into him and instantly spouted out a red blood from the wound.

Gengar didn’t even had a moment to gasp, or to really mentally register the hit, or even to clutch his injury before slumping over onto the floor, defeated in one hit. The crobat turned around in their flight, looking over him with a vague disinterest now.

Nelvana’s eyes widened as the world seemed to slow around her and her vision blurred.

Her first worry was if he was even still alive, but she forced herself to hold out, to not jump to that conclusion so fast; there was no way that one attack could have just killed him, right…?

Her next thought was how she had failed, she had failed to protect him and they were barely over five minutes in this dungeon. Mienshao had been wrong; why had he put so much faith into her if she had failed so fast. She was supposed to be Gengar’s escort and she couldn’t hold off just a few pokemon.

Her third thought on this was barely a thought, and just the sudden realization that Gengar’s blood was red; more like a human than a ghost or poison-type. The stench of just blood seemed so vivid over all the other fogs and poisonous gases in the room, and her stomach churned and her mind spun from it all.

All of her thoughts were suddenly cut off by claws scraping against bone, and Nelvana’s head being forced down to the floor by the skuntank. The sound of an alarmed beeping sounded out soon afterwards; her badge warning her that if she didn’t heal her client soon, then it would automatically send them back to base.

The skuntank breathed heavily on her neck, and Nelvana knew that if she didn’t pull herself together and act soon, they would go to finish her off next. All her previous fears and anxieties at this situation began blurring together in anger. Anger at this dungeon, at these traps, these poison-types that thought they could get the jump on her. And anger at herself not only for messing up, but for getting too caught up in her mistakes.

Nelvana let out a loud snarl, turning herself around the best she could and kicking the skuntank right in the muzzle with one foot, and then following it up with the next after a momentary delay. Unable to handle this attack on top of the previous damage, the skuntank rolled over to their side and disappeared like the other defeated dungeon spawn.

She pulled herself up to her feet again, spinning around and racing to the crobat, who seemed to have the same intentions of attacking. Nelvana met the crobat head on, literally, by slamming her head into the bat pokemon before they could land their attack. The crobat fluttered backwards, doing their best to keep flying despite the heavy hit, but Nelvana was ready to follow up her previous attack with a new one. Instead of using her club, she lifted her foot and stomped down on the crobat, sending them to the ground. When they didn’t disappear and showed signs of getting back up, she stomped again, finally making them faint and disappear.

Slowly, Nelvana’s mind began to clear again as she breathed heavily. As she let herself think more about what just happened, it occurred to her that she hadn’t used that move before. While powerful, it had… scared her.

The beeping only quickened, drawing her back over to where Gengar was. She rushed back over to him, not hesitating in digging in his bag with one hand until she found one of the reviver seeds they had collected and shoving it at him.

Much to her relief, the golden seed glowed and then faded to a dull brown as the beeping from her badge stopped, and Gengar groggily opened his eyes with a groan. He winced with pain, trying to turn away and close his eyes again, but Nelvana nudged him to get his attention.

“You are not going down this fast, not when we’re this close,” she hissed, but she couldn’t hide the worry in her voice. “Stay awake; I’m going to bandage you up.”

“Gah… what did tha’ thing hit me with?” Gengar slurred, slowly opening his eyes again.

“Keep your eyes open but don’t look at the wound,” Nelvana instructed instead of answering, digging through the bag again and pulling out a roll of bandages along with an oran berry. “Are you able to lift your head up a bit?”

“Yeah…”

Gengar craned his head up slightly, trying to prop his arms to keep himself up better as he did so. While he did this though, his gaze drifted down to where he was feeling pain from, and he paled at the sight.

“I said don’t look!” Nelvana insisted firmly, shoving the oran berry at Gengar. “Eat this instead; stare at a wall and count as high as you can if it helps you.”

“How am I…” Gengar trailed off, taking in a deep breath and deciding to follow Nelvana’s instructions rather than keep asking questions.

With Gengar now more stable and, albeit mildly, distracted, Nelvana began working with the bandages. She didn’t have much with her here, so she figured this would have to do for now. The oran berry would definitely help, among other things, so she trusted that it would be fine.

Without anything to properly clean the wound though, she was forced to sacrifice some of the bandages to pat away from of the nauseating blood first.

“Okay, can you sit up now?” Nelvana forced her voice to be calmer, focusing on her own breathing nearly as much as this task.

Gengar obliged, trying to sit up too quickly at first and wincing, but then succeeding on his more careful, second try. Nelvana began gingerly wrapping the bandages around him and his wound, finding herself acting without thinking about what she was actually doing at this point. Distantly, this reminded her of fixing up Octillery’s injuries from Magma Cavern, but even then, that had reminded her of something she still was unable to remember.

Finally, she finished wrapping up the wound, and after ripping off the extra and rolling it back into the bag, she patted her handywork to see if it would actually hold. Gengar appeared more alert now, and seemed to have decided that it would be alright to watch the last steps in fixing up his cut.

“There, that should hold for the rest of the dungeon,” Nelvana said, though part of her doubted the truthfulness to her own claim. “How are you feeling?”

“Better…” Gengar murmured, hesitantly tracing a finger over the bandages. “At least, better than when you first got me up. The oran berry helped for sure.”

Nelvana exhaled with relief, “that’s good to hear. Normally I’d say you should try taking it easy, but you might not be given that choice. Just do your best to stay careful, alright?”

“Alright,” Gengar replied.

Deep down, Nelvana awaited something more. For him to tell her to be more careful, to confirm her own self-doubts about her ability to keep him from getting hurt here. However, he said nothing more on the matter, and appeared more focused on trying to stand up on his own instead.

Once Gengar was back to walking around on his own, they continued through the dungeon in silence. Nelvana was more thankful than this than ever, using this time to focus on hearing the dungeon pokemon and spotting traps before they got stepped on.

They managed to get up to the second floor, and Nelvana’s stomach twisted at that count. Mienshao had told them there would twenty floors in this dungeon, and they had only completed one percent of that number. Never had that number felt so impossible to climb to. She ached for the presence of her teammates to help make the last stretch of this journey just go by better.

Their next opponents were a dustox and toxapex, the former fluttering in from one of the other pathways and the latter rising out from one of the pools of liquid. Nelvana’s clenched her teeth at the sight, and then glanced backwards at Gengar.

“Actually, I’ve got a good idea, how about we go through the walls for some of this? It’ll make me a bit hungrier and whatnot but that’s easier to recover from than so many battles,” she suggested, rubbing her thumb over the mobile scarf tied around her knuckles again.

“Uh… maybe not? Come on, you can take these guys!” Gengar responded, “you aren’t scared of them, are you?” he pressed, but Nelvana cued in to how he sounded more scared than she did.

“I’m not scared,” she lied, “but even if we don’t use this idea now, it would be good to use in the future.” Nelvana insisted, “Besides, they can’t hit you in the walls. It’s safer for you, at the very least.”

“Nah, I’m perfectly fine out here,” he lied back, “just… don’t feel like going into the walls right now.”

Nelvana opened her mouth to question Gengar, but the dungeon pokemon weren’t about to let the pair keep having their discussion on their own, and she realized she was going to have to deal with them. Both the dustox and the toxapex went down with some well thrown bonemerangs, leaving only the scattered poison dust from the bug in their wake.

“Why don’t you really want to go in the walls?” Nelvana questioned, spinning around to face him properly. “Look, if it’s a fear or something, I get it, but that ability is something that’s really handy and you-“

“I can’t!” Gengar blurted out, curling his hands into fists. “You happy? I never figured out how to travel through walls. I managed shadows, but that’s… weird,” he snapped, “I never learned how to float, either,” he added under his breath.

“That’s it…?” Nelvana paused, and then unwrapped the tattered fabric that was around her knuckles before handing it over to Gengar. “Someday you’re going to need to learn on your own, but for now, I value your safety more than that lesson. You can hold onto this again.”

Gengar blinked, “wait… really? Just like that? But what about you?”

“I’ll manage. Just take it,” Nelvana sighed.

After another moment of hesitation, Gengar accepted his mobile scarf back. He immediately went to tie it around his arm like he used to, but after discovering that it had been torn again and no longer made it the full way around, he settled for tying it around one of his spikes instead.

“Great, let’s keep going,” Nelvana said, turning around and heading into the next room.

They made it through the second floor, and continued onto the third floor and the ones after that. Now for every battle, Gengar would use the mobile scarf to slip away into a nearby wall, leaving Nelvana to handle however many foes where there to herself. Once the danger was gone, he would come out again to walk behind his escort through the hallways of the dungeon.

They were stronger than any of the spawn back at Mt. Blaze and the Frosty Forest, but their common poison-typing seemed to give Nelvana the right advantage to even that difficulty out, at least somewhat. Their numbers certainly seemed to just make matters worse though. Though it somehow didn’t make her feel good to admit it, fighting was a lot easier when Nelvana didn’t have to worry about her client getting beat up.

Traps were still an issue though, as Nelvana couldn’t always figure out where each one was ahead of time, and sometimes Gengar wouldn’t follow directly behind her and step on something she hadn’t gotten the chance to warn him about. The traps varied from hitting them with chestnuts or a gust of wind, to confusing or putting whoever had stepped on them to sleep, and of course, spawning more pokemon. Nelvana was thankful that none of them had been too bad so far though, all things considered; there was always the chance of finding either of the two possible traps that would split them up, or one of the traps that would outright drain all of one’s energy.

While they expected monster houses to be a big problem, those were surprisingly easy to avoid. As Nelvana realized, before actually walking in, thankfully, only the rooms with a monster house would have items other than a few coins. Though Gengar seemed tempted to snatch some of the TMs, he understood the danger of that enough not to actually go in; even if he could just go hide in a wall. So, this meant that they were always avoidable; unless that happened to be the room with the stairs to the next floor.

Which of course was bound to happen sooner or later.

After getting lucky with nearby stairs for a couple floors up to the ninth, and then that luck completely turning around and forcing them to search the entire floor, they found the stairs in a room practically filled in every floor space with various items.

Nelvana let out a sharp hiss as she looked over the room, eyes just narrowing at all the orbs and TMs littered about; something that she could only bitterly think that would make Kecleon swoon in awe. Gengar peeked over her shoulder to see what was up ahead, and his mouth slowly turned down in a worried frown as he pieced together what this meant.

“What are we going to do?” Gengar whispered, leaning back away from the opening to the room.

“Well, I’d rather not face an entire monster house on my own…” Nelvana mumbled, stretching her arms. “So, I’ll have to try sprinting through. You hide in the walls, wait until all the spawn get thoroughly distracted before going for the stairs,” she explained.

“Are you sure…?” Gengar questioned, looking over the large room. “That’s a lot of distance to cover.”

“Well, unless you have any better ideas, this is what we’ll have to go with,” Nelvana replied, reluctantly; she didn’t actually enjoy this idea much either, but she wasn’t going to try facing a horde all at once.

“You…” Gengar paused, trying to think of something. “You could wait for them to come to you in the hallway, and use bonemerang to knock them all out one by one.”

Nelvana considered the idea, but eventually had to regretfully shake her head, letting out a small sigh.

“I’d like that, but I could run out of energy for the move,” she told him, “and if something comes behind me, it’s all over from there,” she added, “it’s alright, I’m ready for this. You go ahead and hide in the wall.”

Gengar stared at her, still reluctant to follow through with this idea, but slowly he stepped back and faded into the wall behind him. Nelvana stared back at the space where he once was before turning back to look into the room. After preparing herself, focusing her energy just in case, she bolted in.

Instantly the room shook around her as various dungeon spawn seemed to drop out from the ceiling around her. Nelvana forced herself to ignore them and keep running, diving in and around the other pokemon before they had the chance to really realize that she was there.

Once they did realize though, an entire crowd had their eyes trained on her, the mere feeling of it making her throat tighten at the instinctive feeling that tore at her mind and memories, both forgotten and still clear as day. Despite this pushing more fear deep within her, it also pushed her to run faster, honing in on her path towards the stairs.

A scolipede charged at her, ramming their head at her side and forcing her to the ground, but Nelvana clawed her way back to her feet again and forced herself back into the same sprint. A muk swiped a hand at her as the ran, but she spotted it out of the corner of her vision and managed to leap over the attack. The poisonous gas of various pokemon began filling the room, clouding her senses and only burning her lungs even more.

It wasn’t until the dungeon pokemon seemed to at least vaguely get the idea to team up that Nelvana really ran into trouble though. When another toxicroak leapt from behind her, aiming a kick to the back of her head, and a seviper posed themself right under foot that she fell down again. When the seviper then coiled itself around her body that she couldn’t get back up right away. When she wasn’t running, the dungeon pokemon began closing in.

Nelvana wrenched her arm with her club free, hastily bashing it into the seviper’s head to get them away from her so that she could stand up again. But even at that point, what once could have been considered a clear path to the stairs was now blocked by the rest of the pokemon, surrounding her.

“Nelvana!” Gengar yelled out.

She didn’t turn her head to look right away, she didn’t want to get distracted in a moment like this, but the thought crossed her mind that she shouldn’t be able to hear Gengar if he was still in the wall.

Hurriedly, she shoved her way through the pokemon in her way, earning herself poisoned spikes in her skin and claws raked across her fur in response as she forced her way through. Even as she made her way through that part of the crowd and steps closer to the stairs, her head was beginning to swim under the effects of the various venoms that were trying to make their way in her system.

Suddenly another weight barreled its way into her, and before she could react properly, the world warped around her. Her previous spot fell away from her, and after what felt like being spun around like a whirlpool, she found herself suddenly shot back onto solid ground, but now in front of the stairs.

The weight was still on her though, and the way her warmth drained out from her the more it remained on her made Nelvana realize that this was Gengar, and he had just teleported them closer to their destination. Blinking through the dark spots that bubbled in the corners of her vision, she looked back at her ally, who seemed to be experiencing the same sort of post-teleportation daze she found herself in.

But past that, she could see that the monster house wasn’t about to just give up on them after that.

Pulling herself together, Nelvana crawled away from Gengar’s weight that was leaning onto her, but grabbed his hand to try dragging him up the stairs.

“Get up! We’ve just got the stairs and then we’re safe!” she called.

Fortunately, Gengar dragged himself up as well, and the two ran the rest of the way up the stairs.

Nelvana could feel the air become clearer on the next floor, and as she took in deep breaths, the poisons slowly left her body. They were lucky to have no more foes up on this new room on the next floor, and took a moment to catch their breath.

“Hah… good job there,” Nelvana commented, “I didn’t know you could teleport more than just yourself. That… That was really weird, but it definitely worked.”

Gengar rubbed his forehead with one of his hands, “I didn’t know I could do that either,” he admitted with a laugh, “I was just running in there with no plan; so, I’m glad that worked out for the better.”

“Oh, well, me too,” Nelvana chuckled, shaking her head at that last part.

“Next time though, I’m grabbing some of those items,” Gengar joked, letting out a wheeze between his laughter at his own joke.

“I really hope we don’t have to concern ourselves with a next time here,” Nelvana replied, rubbing her sore side from being shoved around so much.

They remained there for a few more seconds, before Nelvana stretched again and stepped forward, ready to continue through the dungeon. Gengar silently followed over to stand by her side, but not before untying the mobile scarf from around his spike and handing it to the cubone.

“I think… I think that I want to try your plan,” he told her, “I need to learn how to go through the walls on my own; it’s safer that way.”

Nelvana blinked, but accepted the scarf, hesitantly and slowly tying it back around her knuckles “are you sure?” she asked him.

“Yeah, but, uh, if you think we have the time, I’d like to practice a bit first,” Gengar responded, glancing back at one of the walls.

“Oh, of course! Go ahead; maybe I’ll see about adjusting to this thing too,” Nelvana replied, “we shouldn’t take too long though, just to get used to it, alright?”

Gengar nodded, and so they took some time to practice going through the dungeon walls. After many minutes of Nelvana going in and out, trying to not stumble in a daze at every exit, and then helping Gengar make his way in without the use of the item, they began managing the strategy.

Once Gengar figured out what he actually had to do to enter the wall, he was able to learn how to stay in and grow more comfortable quickly. It took a lot of work to get there though; Nelvana trying to get him to think about how it felt to use the mobile scarf to hopefully get him cue in to some of his ghost-type instincts.

Getting the time to practice wasn’t that easy either. Dungeon spawn would eventually wander their way in, and Nelvana would have to swiftly handle them before they could become an issue to the training pair. Plus, eventually they got an ominous feeling that they had stayed on the same floor for too long, and had to run along to find the next set of stairs so they would be able to continue practicing without that danger.

Eventually though, Nelvana and Gengar agreed that they would be able to at the very least get through the rest of this dungeon using this plan. Taking in a deep breath, Nelvana stepped into a nearby wall once more, the mobile scarf tingling around her hand as she did so, beginning to lead the way for their exploration of this dungeon with a new perspective.

Walking through walls for an extended duration of time was something she found that could only be really described as tight. Everything felt so constricted around her, and trying to move only ate away at her energy, making her feel hungrier. She could still see though, and in fact could see outside of the wall, giving everything outside a ghostly appearance.

Glancing backwards at Gengar told her that he was having less troubles with this. His biggest struggle had been to get in, and stay in, in the first place, and not how the experience felt. It was more natural to someone with the ghost typing anyhow.

Thinking it over, Nelvana wasn’t sure if this allowed them to cover ground faster. They had to pause every once and awhile for her to catch her breath and nibble on one of the apples they had, and it wasn’t as if this showed them to the stairs more efficiently. However, it worked for her plan of avoiding the pokemon here, and that was what she felt mattered more in this instance. It wasn’t foolproof, they still were forced to battle, but it was better than the alternative, she found. At the very least, this meant that there were less traps to find.

Gengar followed behind Nelvana, glancing out at the main hallways and rooms whenever he could. He watched them pass by rooms with more items but also the promise of a monster house, as well as just other dungeon spawn wandering about. Seeing the former irked him slightly, the temptation of nabbing some of those items always nibbling at the back of his mind. Who knew what kind of rare TMs were gathered around here…?

“Pst, Nel,” Gengar called out, hurrying up to get closer to the cubone. “I was thinking… since we can hide from the pokemon like this, maybe we could grab some items from a monster house room?”

Nelvana shook her head, “don’t get overconfident,” she told him.

“Okay, but what if we just set it off, and then wait for all of them to get bored and leave the room, so we can safely grab whatever is in there?” Gengar continued.

“I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not sit in here any longer than I need to,” Nelvana replied, taking in a gasp of breath as they hopped out from one wall, across a hallway a bit, and into the next wall.

Gengar sighed, shaking his head at himself. He couldn’t believe that he had almost forgotten that this wasn’t as easy for her as it was for him, for once. If he really wanted those items, he would have to do it in a way that didn’t put either of them in risk; which was nearly impossible.

“Well, you may have gotten your wish, in a twisted way,” Nelvana groaned, looking out to the next room. “This room is another with the monster house and stairs. And here I’d hope we could make it through the last couple floors without this kind of trouble…”

“Oh.” Gengar bit his lip, part of him feeling guilty for having wanted something like this to happen. “We could just run through, if you want.”

“I do want that,” Nelvana responded, “but, if you think that you have enough of that shadow traveling ability down or a good teleport ready, I think I can trust you to grab one or two things before we make that break for it,” she added.

“Uh… I think I’ll go for teleport.” He teleported more than he used his shadow traveling ability.

“Okay, I’ll be back here,” Nelvana replied, meeting Gengar’s eyes for a moment before looking out to the room ahead of them.

He nodded, and then nodded again to stall for time to work up his own confidence. He tried mapping out where he could go; there were a few items already close to where they were that he could probably get safely, but would it be too reckless to go grab that one further ahead?

Finally, he shook his head this time, and made his first steps out into the room, activating the monster house around him. Gengar quickly grabbed the TMs he had planned for, and then decided to risk trying to go for one more, and took another step forward.

The ground changed into a tile with an electrode under his foot. Before he had a moment to teleport or turn around to ask Nelvana what this was, the trap exploded.

Gengar was flung away from the trap by the force of the blast, tumbling a few meters away from it. He lay there for a moment, his ears ringing and head throbbing. His side where the crobat had hit him earlier stung in an agonizing pain again, but he could still thankfully feel the bandages safely wrapped around his injury. Slowly though, he pulled himself up, staggering as he looked around at the results of the explosion trap.

The wall that Nelvana had been hiding in was destroyed from the detonation, and the cubone herself was taking in deep breaths as she recovered from the blast herself. Many of the spawn that had been around the area were either stunned or defeated, though those who had been outside of that radius were completely unharmed.

It occurred to Gengar that he couldn’t hear anything aside from the ringing in his ears, despite seeing that Nelvana seemed to be trying to yell something. Was she calling out to him? He couldn’t quite tell. He rubbed his ears to see if that would help his hearing.

Suddenly, as he watched Nelvana try fending off some of the recovering foes, it clicked in Gengar’s mind what kind of a situation they were in. She was fifteen, he was thirteen! What were they doing, risking their lives all on their own? Nelvana had already had to fight legendaries; why was a young teenager out fighting the gods of this world?

What were they doing?

“-ut of it! We can’t just stand around here, come on!” Nelvana cried out, tugging on Gengar’s arm.

Gengar blinked, everything coming back into focus all at once as he was dragged over to the stairs. There were still some dungeon spawn lingering in the room, but at a glance it appeared like Nelvana had decided to finish off any of them that had been affected by the trap. He did his best to pull himself back together, following Nelvana up the stairs and to the next floor.

“Hey Nel, do you think that since I have some memories of my future human self that I might act based on those memories sometimes?” he blurted out, thinking back to what had just gone through his mind.

Nelvana looked back at him with a look in her eyes that he couldn’t quite place, “I… I don’t know, maybe? Why are you asking me this now?”

“I just… got thinking about age again,” Gengar murmured, “do you realize how young we actually are to be out here?”

“No…? What do you mean?” Nelvana questioned, glancing around the new room they had arrived in.

“Well… you know what, nevermind. I kinda lost my train of thought anyway,” Gengar replied, “also, you can let go of my arm now.”

Nelvana paused, blinking at that last statement. She looked back, realizing she was still, in fact, tightly gripping Gengar’s arm. She let go, moving that hand to fidget with her club instead.

“Right, okay… this should be the last floor, come on.”

Deciding to stick with the hallways for a bit, Nelvana didn’t enter a wall right away and began walking down one of the paths naturally presented ahead of them. Gengar followed along as usual, letting his confusion at his own question fade away to the back of his mind.

The goal of one last flight of stairs to go pushed them forward, finally reaching their destination after exploring many dead ends and other rooms on this floor. However, when the reached the base of the stairs, Nelvana spun around to face Gengar.

“Alright, so… this is it,” she announced.

“Yeah? I know that,” he responded.

“Look, I don’t know what Ninetales thinks that you don’t have, or what Mienshao thinks that you do have, but I know something,” Nelvana told him, “and that’s that Gardevoir forgives you for what you did, and I think that that counts for something. And… I think that I forgive you for what you did to me too. I’ve been looking back and thinking that over, and I think… A lot of things came out from that, and a lot since then. I think that I can forgive you for the bad out of that now,” she continued.

Gengar blinked, mouth silently parting open slightly from surprise at Nelvana’s forgiveness, which sounded incredibly sudden to him.

“But at the same time… I need to ask you something. Do you forgive yourself?” she asked.

There was a long silence, and when Nelvana realized that Gengar didn’t have an answer for her, she simply nodded and turned back around.

“You don’t need to tell me, but I get the feeling that it’s important to think about,” she said, “but, we shouldn’t be wasting anymore time. Let’s go see the judge.”

With that, she began climbing up the stairs. After a pause, Gengar followed her again.

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which the judge is spoken to Previous: In which there is an entry test

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forged-through-trials · 3 years

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Ruin and I legged back toward the entrance to Kerrach. There was found the Ayleid King, as well as all of the other ghosts I’d helped along this journey. I approached the king, and presented him with the white crystal. Ayleid King: “...You have it... champion... I can feel it... the Heart of Kerrach... give it to me... yes, YES!” Trials: “Why do you talk like that?” Ayleid King: “In... life... I had... a strOOOOOke.” Trials: “...well, sorry about that. Do go on.” Ayleid King: “We... are free... my people... free at last... Dagon’s spawn thrown down... thanks to our champion... our savior...” Trials: “...” I flushed, covering my face in embarrassed humility. Ayleid King: He held the crystal in his hands. “...I feel the Heart pulsing... it calls to me... to us... to all my people... we must go now to our reward...” Ruin: “Your reward?” Ayleid King: “Our reward is... to die the final death... to sleep forever... It has been so long... too long... We wish for peace...” Ruin: “I cannot imagine your torment. But you will have your peace at last.” Ayleid King: “...But you... our champion... your reward is not that... your reward is different...” Trials: “I...” I hesitated for a moment. “I don’t need a reward.” Ayleid King: “...Once... when Kerrach... was green... and the waters... flowed... bright and blue... when birds sang... in the trees... Then I would have given you... jewels... and riches... power... but no longer... now all I have... is the Sigil of Kerrach... symbol of my people... please... take it... it will help you... as it has helped me... these many ages... take it... and remember us...” Trials: “...” Reluctantly, I accepted the ring. Ayleid King: “...And now... champion... there is one... last task... to perform... for Kerrach...” Trials: “...anything. Name it, and I’ll do it.” Ayleid King: “...To watch our joyous death... to watch our passing... and to remember... us... there are no others now... remember us... “...We go now... to our reward... follow us... to the sacred well... and farewell...” The ghosts of Kerrach vanished one by one, fading from this room. When all of them had disappeared, Ruin and I rushed over toward the great well as instructed, as I was eager to offer that last service to these poor ghosts.

We arrived just in time. The formerly enslaved ghosts arranged themselves around the well, and the Ayleid King bathed the Heart of Kerrach crystal into the light-column over the well. The ritual had begun, and the king spoke words, which I didn’t understand, but I presumed that I was hearing the words of the ancient Ayleid language... which raised all kinds of questions about where these ghosts learned to speak Cyrodiilic. As the ritual commenced, and the Ayleid King spoke his long-forgotten words, pillars of light shot out from the statue of El-Ataran, and one by one, the ghosts that I had rescued vanished in brilliant bursts of light, starting at the far left from where I was facing the well, then the one to the furthest right, then the one to the inner right, then the one to the inner left, now leaving only the king himself. He spoke some final words in his ancient tongue, and as he vanished in the final burst of light, I felt that feeling of being squeezed through a tube of ice, and Ruin and I quickly found ourselves outside of Breakneck Lair. It was night, exceedingly late, and we both were tired as hell. Yet, I felt good. Sure, the Ayleids, in life, were bad guys--slavers!--but even they didn’t deserve slavery. After thousands of years under the torment of the Dremora, they’d more than paid the price for their crimes. It was more than time for them to go free, and I was happy to be the one to finally send them to their rest. And I am happy to be the one to carry the memory of Kerrach, as the king had requested. The last living reminder of a forgotten city and people.

Of course, it being nearly 3AM when we got out of there, we had to hike back to town through the dark to get our own rest. The following day, Ruin and I made the rounds to the shops, selling off the loot we’d plundered from Kerrach. That eventually brought us back to Mach-Na’s Books. While browsing her wares and offering my own, I remembered what she’d said the day before, about the local guards shaking her down. I asked if she could elaborate on the situation. Mach-Na: “Ever since Ulrich Leland took over the Captain of the Guard post, this city’s gone downhill. It’s getting almost scary to walk the streets.” Trials: I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Really, a Captain!? I guess we’re going to have to track down two witnesses to the Emperor picking his nose if we wanna oust him.” Ruin: “That’s still bugging you, isn’t it? Well, perhaps because this is not the Imperial City, the laws might be a little more lax this far out east. “But ma’am, go on. How has the situation deteriorated since Leland became Captain?” Mach-Na: “The guards have imposed new, ridiculously heavy fines for every infraction under the sun! They almost seem to make up laws just for charging fines.” Trials: “Really? Like what?” Mach-Na: “It is considered an offense to shower naked. “Stepping on a coin will be punished by a flogging. “Eating a neighbor’s baby is strictly forbidden--” Trials: “I would hope that last one would be illegal!” Mach-Na: “And lastly, it is illegal to die inside the town limits.” Trials: “Good luck collecting on that one.” Mach-Na: “If you can’t pay the fine, they can take your property away or toss you in the castle dungeon. Nothing we can do about it, really. “If you’re interested, go talk to Llevana Nedaren. She seems the most outspoken against Ulrich and his new fines.”

Ruin and I were on the case, and went seeking “Llevana Nedaren” as instructed. We found her near the town graveyard, and I got her attention, and spoke to her. Llevana: “You seem far too nice to be one of Ulrich’s men. What can I do for you?” Trials: “Well, you might say we’re investigating Leland’s administration. What can you tell us about the new fines he’s imposed?” Llevana: “Don’t even get me started! That madman won’t be satisfied until everyone in town is dead broke! Or in jail. I’m sure he’s just lining his pockets with the gold of the good citizens of Cheydinhal. “Take my good friend, ‘Aldos Othran,’ for example. In the last moth, he’s been fined six times! All for being drunk and disorderly.” Ruin: “Umm, was he?” Llevana: “Have you ever gone past a guard barracks? When are the not ‘drunk and disorderly’?? What kind of a stupid fine is that!?” Ruin: “That’s... not really how the law--” Trials: “’Rules for thee, not for me.’ Preachin’ to the choir, there, Sister.” Ruin: “...” He sighed. “Well, what became of your friend?” Llevana: “Well, Aldos couldn’t pay the last two fines, so they seized his home and threw him into the street until he could pay it. Bastards!” Trials: Sardonically. “You know, because being homeless is just so conducive to making money.” Ruin: “Trials, you’re homeless, and you have--” Trial: I immediately covered Ruin’s mouth. “Ruin, please don’t say out loud how much gold I have in a town where the guards are actively shaking people down for money.” Ruin: He brushed my hand aside, turning to Llevana once more. “Is there anyone who can help? The Count, perhaps?” Llevana: “The Count? He could care less about our plight. As long as the roast suckling pig is delivered to his feast-table, he’s as happy as can be. “But now that you mention it, there’s one man who seems to care; ‘Garrus Darelliun,’ second-in-command of the town guard. I hear he isn’t happy with Ulrich. I’m not sure if there’s anything he can do, but you might try speaking to him. He can be found roaming the County Hall of the castle most of the time.”

Thusly tipped off, we made for the castle, whereupon we saw the Count holding court. Garrus was in attendance. I thought briefly of speaking to Count Indarys himself, but after the experience in the Imperial City, and in Skingrad, I knew going to the top wouldn’t get me very far. Instead, we spoke to Garrus as instructed, once we were able to get him alone. Garrus: “What do you want?” Trials: “Hey, we’re kind of new in town, but we’ve been hearing some rumors about guard-corruption, and I was wondering if we could speak to you about it?” Garrus: “It appears you’ve spoken to Llevana, from the sound of it. I know she sounds like a raving madwoman, but she isn’t far from the truth. Ulrich is definitely up to something.” Ruin: “What makes you suspect him?” Garrus: “While Ulrich keeps his quarters locked, I’ve managed to get a glimpse inside once. The things he has in there could never be purchased on a Captain’s salary. At first I thought maybe he was from wealthy stock, but many of the goods have been delivered recently.” Trials: “Agreed, that sounds super sus’. So, why don’t we just skip the ‘two witnesses to Ulrich scratching his butt’ step and go straight to the Count?” Garrus: “I’d love to bring him to task in front of Count Indarys, but I dare not without a solid witness that will speak against him.” Trials: Sardonically. “Oh? Only one witness needed? How novel. “Anyway, Llevana seems ready to scream her head off about Ulrich at any opportunity. How about we get her to testify?” Garrus: “Honestly, she’s never done anything to be fined or get into trouble... yet. The person I’d love to bring in as a witness is Aldos Othran... that is, if we can sober him up for five minutes! “I haven’t approached him myself, as Ulrich has eyes everywhere--” Trials: “It sounds like it’s more than just Ulrich who is in on this. AGAB continues to be my Watch-Words.” Garrus: “...’Assigned Goose at Birth’?” Trials: “...” I shook my head. “No it means...” I thought better of it. “Never mind. I get it, we’re new in town, so Ulrich won’t be watching out for us. We’ll see if we can talk to Aldos for you. Where can we find him?” Garrus: “Aldos is living on the street now that his house has been seized. I begged Ulrich to give him more time, but he wouldn’t! “It shouldn’t be hard to find Aldos. Just follow the smell of stale mead.” Ruin: “That may just lead us back to Trials.” Trials: “Hey! I drink fresh mead!” Garrus: “One last word of warning; beware of Ulrich. I wouldn’t confront him at this time, as he’ll surely have you thrown in jail. And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you the consequences if you choose to strike him down. Even if Ulrich doesn’t do things by the letter of the law, I do.” Trials: “Ya know that sticking to ‘the letter of the law’ is what’s allowing Ulrich to get away with all this, right? And what ‘law’ says; ‘when in doubt, hire some drunk lizard to do ninety-percent of the legwork for you?’“ Garrus: “It’s right here, on page forty-two.” He offered me his guardsman’s handbook. Trials: I look into the book, finding the relevant passage immediately. “Huh... well I’ll be damned.” Garrus: “Why do you think the Empire tolerates adventurers in the first place? I mean, other than because one seems to save the world every few years?”

Once we were back on the street, we noticed this guard standing in front of a house. I assumed that must’ve been Aldos Othran’s former home. With no better leads, I decided to chat up the guard to see if he could point me toward Aldos. Guard: “I’m sorry, no one except the Cheydinhal City Guard are allowed inside this home. Due to outstanding fines owed to the city, Aldos Othran’s property has been seized and is now sealed until further notice.” Trials: “Ho, Class-Traitor. I was wondering if you could pull those jackboots off of the neck society long enough to point me in the direction of the previous owner of this newly stolen property.” Guard: He scowled. “Hey, I don’t need this sass. I’m just doing my job!” Trials: I waved a hand in front of my face with disgust. “Oooph, and which part of your job forbids you from dental hygiene? Just because I know you’ve been huffing your own farts doesn’t mean your breath needs to actually smell like it.” Guard: “Yeah... well...” He attempted a Speech-roll. “You’re... your hair is stupid!” [ Failed. ] Trials: I smirked knowingly. “Uh-huh, yeah, I’m sure your mother was very proud when you flunked out of the Fighters Guild and took this position as a consolation prize. I can’t imagine how stressful it is to guard an empty building all day. I’m sure Ulrich only sends his best for jobs like this! “Now could you please point that guar-butt you call a mouth away from me and tell me where I can find Aldos Othran?” Guard: “...” He scowled all the harder. “I’m going to talk to Ulrich and have him make back-talking a City Guardsman a fineable offense!” Trials: “Sure, hell, I got the coin to pay to dis you all day. How’s it feel to know some drunk lizard makes more in a day than you do in a year? But man-oh-man, imagine carrying a big sword on your hip and being that insecure. Sorry, can’t relate!” Guard: Visibly fuming. “Just... just get out of my face, lizard! Othran is in the alley to the left.” Ruin: “...did you really have to be so rude to him?” Trials: “I didn’t have to be, but I wanted to be, and when nine-times-out-of-ten I wind-up doing these chumps’ job for them, and the tenth-time-out-of-ten I wind-up cleaning up their corruption, I’m going to take every opportunity I can to rub their noses in it.”

By the City Wall, we finally found the Elf himself; Aldos Othran. Aldos: Singing. “Flyyyyyy, flying in the skyyyyy! Cliff-Racer fly soooooo hiiiiiiiigh! Flyyyyy!” Trials: “...ugh, please don’t remind me of those vile creatures. I still have nightmares of them chasing me across Lord Dres’ plantation.” Aldos: Slurred. “...wh-who’re you?” Ruin: He fanned away the air in front of his face and looked disgusted. “...Garrus really wasn’t kidding about the stale mead.” Trials: “Hey, we were wondering if we could talk to you about testifying against Ulrich Leland?” Aldos: “Ha! That stupid s’wit!? Throw me out of my home, will he?” Trials: “Well, uh, we’re working on getting your house back. We just need you to--” Aldos: “I’ll show him a thing or two about messing with an Othran!” Trials: “Okay, fine, just ignore me. I’ll be here when you finish raving.” Aldos: “All I did was fall down, sure. Maybe even vomited on the floor of the tavern. Charge me six times, Ulrich...? Charge me, you fetcher!?” Ruin: “That does sound like it ought to be up to he owner of the tavern to charge you.” Trials: “Six times! What, did they charge you per chunk you blew?” Aldos: “Well, I’m not standin’ for this any more. You, come with me and I’ll show you what the Othrans can do when their backs are to the wall!” Trials: “...I have a bad feeling about this.”

Aldos stormed off after that. Ruin and I gave chase, following him back toward his old home, where he immediately confronted the guard out front of it. Aldos: “This is my house! Get out of the way... move, I say!” Guard: “Sir, this property has been seized by his lordship, the Count of Cheydinhal. Leave immediately.” Trials: “Oh, Aldos, I don’t think this is a good ide--” Aldos: “I said move! Or by my ancestors I’ll put you on the ground with a split lip!” Trials: “Aldos, antagonize the guard, but don’t threaten him!” Ruin: “Actually, don’t antagonize him, either.” Guard: “Sir, I must warn you that threatening a city guardsman is an offense punishable by a fine of no less than 50 gold. Pay, or be jailed!” Trials: “...I don’t think you understand what a ‘warning’ is. Hint; it doesn’t include an ‘or else.’” Aldos: “You s’wit! How dare you! Ulrich be damned! He can take his fine and stuff it up his backside!” Trials: “As much as I appreciate that burn, you’re just diggin’ yourself deeper, Aldos.” Guard: “You’ve been warned. You are now under arrest. Please come with me.” Trials: I stomped my foot. “Look, bootlicker, I’ll pay his fine, just leave the man al--” Aldos: “I’ll go nowhere with you, fetcher! Nowhere!”

Guard: “Sir, I must inform you that dying within the city limits is an offense--” Trials: “You killed him, you bastard!” Guard: “You saw what happened. I had no choice! Aldos attacked first, and I had to defend myself.” Trials: “He came at you with a rusty butter-knife! That thing wouldn’t cut scrib-jelly!” Guard: “If you don’t like it, take it up with Ulrich.” Trials: I narrowed my eyes at him. “You know, one day honest citizens are going to stand up to you crooked guardsmen!” Guard: He gasped, looking panicked. “They are!? Oh no! H-have they set a date?” Trials: I rolled my eyes. “Oh, so you’re a murdering thug and an idiot. Good to know.”

This was a fine mess to find myself in. Our key-witness was dead, and I had to bring the grim news to Llevana. She was Aldos’ best friend, so I’m sure she’d want to know what happened to him. I found her in her home, which was right next to Aldos’ former home. Llevana: Deadpan. “Oh no. They killed him? I can’t believe this.” Trials: “You don’t sound very broken up about it. I thought you were his best friend?” Llevana: “Although there is no change in my patrician facade, I can assure you my heart is breaking. “I’d grown to become fond of him. I wanted to take him into my house, but I was afraid. Now look what’s become of him.” Trials: “Aww, you wanted to be the next ‘Mrs. Othran’.” Llevana: With anger slowly boiling to the surface. “There are no more options left! Ulrich must be dealt with, and actions speak louder than words!” Trials: I blinked in surprise. “Whoa, that escalated quickly!” Llevana: “Dark elves come in two modes; drunk, and angry. And sometimes angry-drunk!” Trials: “Preachin’ to the choir, there, sister.” Llevana: “Now, you must do something for me! Go tell Ulrich that I have some information that incriminates him. Tell him to come alone, or he won’t get it. Then lead him here, and I’ll do the rest.” Ruin: “That seems like a rather obvious trap, madam. Are you certain Ulrich would fall for it?” Trials: “He might. If guardsmen were smart, they wouldn’t need me to solve ninety-nine percent of their problems for them.” Ruin: “Are you actually thinking of going along with this plan?” Trials: “Why not? Ulrich’s a bastard, and with our key-witness dead, what’re the chance’s he’ll ever see justice otherwise?” Ruin: “This does not sound like you, my friend. I think we should consult Garrus first before we make any rash decisions. He may be able to help us through the proper channels.” Trials: I sighed. “Fine, but only as a favor to you, Ruin. We’ll talk to Garrus first, but if he asks me to pull two more witnesses out of my butt, I’m going to punch him in the nose!”

#the elder scrolls #oblivion #modded #let's play #roleplay #ask blog

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sunflower--killingmoon · 7 years

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Letter To Lord Sesshoumaru - excerpt - Rin kills Master Ungai.

Hello, I used to do roleplay in this blog. Still trying to find a way to come back and not let my academical life tear apart. LOL. I’ve been writing this fanfic for almost a year, and I am trying to find new readers. This is a piece from the latest chapter I posted. I hope you like it.

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Rin ignored all the chaos around her. Women and children were rushed into stronger built houses, and some families preferred abandoning the village to get away. They didn’t even see what the enemy looked like, and they surely did not want to. The temple was steady like a rock, it seemed like there was nothing wrong. It was supposed to be a place of peace and spirituality, but in that moment, Rin could only associate it with terror and bitterness. There was nothing holy about it.

The entrance hall and altar were empty and silent, which was awkward enough. In her bare feet, Rin ended up stomping on a different floor material, while searching the temple. It was a hidden door that led below ground level. It was like Ungai had a private dungeon there. She transpassed an invisible barrier, and suddenly things started to get too real. The magic barrier was made to masquerade a ritual that was taking place, and to deafen the sound of Seijin’s screams. The demon boy was surrounded by stakes and staffs dotted with magical properties. An aura emanated from them, causing Seijin pain, while the monk sat in front of him, praying. He was literally destroying Seijin, little by little. Rin interrupted him with a scream.

“LET HIM GO! NOW!”

Ungai opened one eye and prompted the question. “Who are you? What are you doing here? He’s a dangerous demon, thus he must die”.

Tears of anger and fear rolled down her face, so she put her hand over the hilt of her newly acquired weapon and threatened: “If you want to kill him, you have to deal with me first!”

Annoyed and intrigued by the lady, Ungai got up, walked towards Rin, and looked well at her. He slowly remembered where he had seen that face before. Seconds after, the monk’s eyes widened up in surprise and anxiety. “You… I remember you! You’re that little girl that chose to follow a demon, years ago! Child, what has he done to you?”, he grabbed her shoulders, as if to attest that it was really her, in flesh and bone, alive and well. “Don’t tell me you’re still faithful to him!”

Rin shook herself off of him, jumped back and pointed her blade at him, shaking. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. She only wanted Seijin safe. “I’m more faithful than I ever was!”, she snarled. “Stop what you’re doing and give Seijin back to me!”

The monk looked back to Seijin for a second and shook his head in denial, as if realizing something. “Of course… This wretched creature… Is actually Lord Sesshoumaru’s spawn. How could I miss that? The moon on the forehead and those markings. It all makes sense! You poor child… Must have been so young when you had him. That monster raped you, can’t you see?”, he got close to her again.

Rin rose Soruteika up towards Ungai’s neck. She could feel the blade drawing energy from her, but she had a hard time remembering the right words to make it work. Rin was panicking and couldn’t stand watching Seijin suffer any longer. Luckly for him, the distraction provided by Rin diminished the strength of the aura that kept him stuck. He was trying desperately to get out.

Meanwhile Rin cried, but refused to swallow her pride and spat words on Ungai’s face. “Seijin’s not my son… But I will protect him and love him as if he had always been!”

Master Ungai looked disgusted and his mood was swinging into something dangerous and scary. “YOU. ARE. BEYOND. SALVATION”. You must die too, my child!”, he yelled and slapped Soruteika out of Rin’s hand. Then he jumped over her and attempted to strangle her with his bare hands. That was when Seijin finally broke free from the spell. The demon boy shot across the room and headbutted the monk. If he wasn’t weakened by the struggle he had been through, he would have thrown Ungai against the wall. At least he could stop him from suffocating Rin, who crawled after Soruteika. The blade was glowing.

Ungai unveiled another staff and swung it strongly upon Seijin, casting another spell. Having learned and practiced how to use his bracelets since he first got them, Sesshoumaru’s heir finally had found the right words: “YOKEZEN!”

A reddish globe was formed around Seijin, as he kneeled, keeping both arms flexed, above his head. The monk’s weapon was forcing in the barrier, but he couldn’t break it. Even though, Seijin wasn’t sure how long he would hold on. When he was on the verge of submitting, the monk dropped his staff.

“TAMASHII MIERU!”

It was Rin, who had retrieved her dagger and planted it inside his back. She didn’t know she was able of doing such thing. In that moment also, Shippou had finally found them, and witnessed the scene. He saw Ungai trying to kill Seijin and Rin stabbing him to prevent that from happening. The monk fell on his knees and turned around, slowly, to face Rin while he agonized. He said no words, because he couldn’t. He’d only grab her feet, cough, and gasp. That terrified Rin. From the wound on his body, a ball of light came out of him and floated above the corpse. It was his soul, like the ones Kikyou used to feed on to survive her ghostly condition, back then. The light of the monk’s spirit vanished right after that. It was done. Master Ungai was dead.

#sessrin #Sesshoumaru #Rin #adult Rin #inuyasha fanfic #fanfiction #anime

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returnerofthesky · 7 years

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why do you hate skyrim so much, anyway?

To be honest, I don’t… “hate” Skyrim, per-say? Hate’s too strong a word for any game for me, and even then Skyrim isn’t necessarily a terrible game despite how much I dislike it.

Which probably sounds weird, but that’s just me; most games that I dislike aren’t just plain old bad games. I don’t have an emotional dislike of, say, Bubsy, or Superman 64, or so on. They’re shit games, but there’s nothing particularly redeemable about them. They might have had potential, but it’s more conceptual, rather than being very flawed games with some good ideas (like Gates to Infinity, or Super Mystery Dungeon to a lesser extent).

Anyway, to get back to the question, the reason I don’t like Skyrim is because it feels creatively bankrupt.

To steal a quote from Super Bunnyhop, it’s hard to get engaged in Skyrim when every character feels like the most boring character, when every quest feels like the most boring quest, when every dungeon feels like the most boring crawl… you get the idea. To me it feels like every single time Bethesda had the opportunity to do something creative or interesting in Skyrim or its DLCs, they took the easiest, most boring route possible instead, even though it actively hurts the game’s appeal. And it’s very telling that what I consider to be the two most interesting quests in the game (the murder mystery in Windhelm and the peace treaty in the main story) are also two of the buggiest quests in the game.

Like, vampires in Skyrim are a good example of what I’m talking about. There’s a book in the previous games about a vampire hunter and a scholar (actually a vampire) advising him, and he describes Skyrim vampires as having breath that could freeze the blood inside of you, as well as actually living underneath frozen lakes and being able to reach up through the ice, grab people, and drag them under to feed. That’s not only a fascinating (and grim) concept, but an incredibly cool idea for a snow-based vampire.

Now granted, that’s a fairly dynamic idea, and it’d be hard to implement in Skyrim (especially given they never bothered to add underwater combat), so while I could criticize them for that, I won’t. What I will criticize is the fact that they didn’t even try to make the best approximation of that idea, instead opting to make vampires into slightly tweaked and reskinned bandits/draugr/etc etc.

Like, it wouldn’t need to be exactly like the idea presented in the book, but imagine this: vampires spawn in this invisible, walk-through-able state and have a circle that activates them. Once you walk in and out of that circle, an “invisibility spell wears off” animation plays and they properly spawn, body, weapons and all. Then, they aggro and you might get ambushed if you weren’t being careful. It’s not exactly like the book, but it’s close enough, and since the rest of the game’s enemies are so samey it’d be a nice change of pace.

There’s so many elements that are lacking that it’s very easy to sense the hand of the devs making out exactly what you can and can’t do, despite the whole TES brand emphasizing freedom. It’s obvious that you can’t do absolutely anything (well, at least it was obvious until Breath of the Wild came out), but Skyrim is especially bad at locking you out or not considering other options.

You can’t double-cross or double-deal in the Civil War aside from one single part that basically is the last chance for you to decide your faction. Being a thief is basically useless unless you join the guild, because the Fence perk for Speech doesn’t unlock until the skill is almost max. Conversations in general are far less varied and open-ended than before, meaning speech checks are few and far between as is. Stealth is only really useful for sneak-attacking, since most dungeons aren’t designed to be stealthed through completely. Most of the game’s “puzzles” are those simple match-the-symbol ones, and there isn’t anything particular brain-teasing or dynamic compared to even Oblivion.

I mean, even dragons have this issue. Anyone ever try fighting a dragon without any ranged options? It’s hell. And boring. And oh, oh so bland.

Similarly, like I mentioned, the quests themselves are incredibly bland. I’ve already seen plenty of posts on here throughout the years about how even the most mundane, non-combat-sounding quests usually end up with “please go to this dungeon full of Draugr and get my thing”, but it really is that bad. Most of the quests in Skyrim are either being sent to a dungeon to deal with the incredibly mediocre combat, or you get a vague, completely unashamed fetch quest.

A lot of this is tied to the Miscellaneous quest option, which is basically the game’s way of saying “we whipped up a quick, shitty quest in an hour or two, have fun”. In Riften alone, there’s at least seven or eight Misc quests that essentially amount to “I need you to find me some items, please”:

Finding ten fire salts for the blacksmith

Getting a sword and bringing it to its owner at the castle

Finding alchemy ingredients for the alchemy shop’s apprentice

Finding some gemstones and other items for a jeweler

Finding some gemstones for a bartender’s unfinished wedding ring

Finding ice wraith teeth for a lady to preserve her

Going to another big city to deliver a dagger

Going to a small village to pick up some ore and bring it back

And there’s very little proper “masking” to make these quests seem more interesting. The two quests that I didn’t include that are still fetch quests are a quest about mead being stolen (actually smuggled out at lower prices, which you can partake in or tell to the guards), and a quest about a Dunmer raised by Argonians who wants to find out more about his real parents (which is at least vaguely interesting in and of itself, due to the general relationship between Dunmer and Argonians and all that).

It isn’t just the Misc quests that suffer from this, though. Most of the writing is flawed, bland, or otherwise retreading old ground already, and a lot of it suffers from huge pacing issues. The main quest seems to expect that you’re not going to get distracted, so all of the “urgent” situations it sets up fall flat.

The Fighters Guild recruits you, has you do one proper quest where you find out that they’re werewolves, do one more radiant quest and suddenly they decide that you’re important enough to become a werewolf too. Not that “you know so you might as well”, but that you’ve actually done enough work (two quests worth, oh boy) to merit it (also you’re forced to become a werewolf even if you don’t want to). The Dark Brotherhood essentially does the same Oblivion story of a traitor in the guild over again, except with less interesting characters and less personal stake in the goings-on.

And the quests that aren’t tied to guilds aren’t really that much better, save for maybe a handful that I can’t even think of off the top of my head. It’s lazy, messy, and boring. It’s not completely, utterly terrible or full of plotholes, it’s passable at its best, but it’s still not terribly thought-provoking. I mean, thinking about it is what made me realize it’s not that good, so.

Perhaps more damning than any of this though, is that the gameplay itself is so boring. It’s already kind of an issue that Skyrim has iffy writing in a genre that generally needs to have semi-decent writing most of the time, but its gameplay isn’t really interesting enough to pick up the slack, either.

Admittedly, this problem goes back deeper than just Skyrim - even back during the Morrowind days, people were complaining about the combat due to how you could walk up to enemies and attack or use a spell, and you’d miss even though you’re standing right next to them. People still complain to this day about how confusing the combat is for an action-RPG.

But the problem with that logic is that Morrowind isn’t an action-RPG, it’s a proper old CRPG, more along the lines of Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale. You might be moving in first-person with the WASD keys and so on, but make no mistake that its core gameplay is far more in line with how the older isometric RPGs played, right down to standing right next to an enemy and missing your swings even though the animation played. When you view the game this way, most of its design decisions make a lot more sense.

Unfortunately, that never really registered (again, people still say Morrowind’s an action-RPG), so Oblivion changed things to have some sorta-kinda action-RPG combat. They didn’t rebalance the rest of the RPG elements (how to level up, level scaling, etc) to compensate, though, but instead of tweaking everything to work more naturally in Skyrim, they just removed all of the RPG elements entirely except for the Health/Magicka/Stamina thing.

Of course, that results in another problem: if the game is going to lean so hard on its action elements instead of its RPG elements… why not just play a better action game? Like, Skyrim’s combat is nothing to write home about. Oblivion’s wasn’t great, but at least it was faster and you could attack while jumping and swimming. Skyrim’s is just slow and clunky, and lacking in depth unless you actively choose to add it in.

The perks system is what ties into the combat problems the most. The issue is that the combat actually does have a small bit of depth and quality of life improvements… if you pick the perks that activate them. There’s two main screws with this, the first one being that due to how the level scaling works, you’re better off choosing the perks that just upgrade the raw damage you deal. Since even the most basic enemies slowly become health sponges, the fancy perks usually aren’t as helpful when it comes to actually defeating them.

The other screw is that these upgrades are even perks in the first place. While some abilities are understandable (like the one that sometimes replaces a normal cinematic kill with a decapitation), the ones that alter your power attacks to have extra effects have absolutely no business being optional when the combat is already as shallow as it is. If these tweaks to the power attacks had been default abilities, the perk trees could have been changed or expanded to capitalize on the differences between each kind of attack. On top of this, the choice between maces, axes and swords could have been more significant, rather than simply being minor differences in speed and power.

I know there are more abilities and special things you can do with the dragon shouts, of course, but between having to fight through dungeons in order to get those shouts, and then kill a dragon for a soul to unlock it, it’s usually too much of a pain in the ass to be worth it. Forget going out of my way to get Throw Voice - why not just give me a Noisemaker Arrow or something and be done with it?

The unfortunate thing is that despite all these issues, the combat is still generally just okay at best, so it can be hard sometimes to complain about it. But when the entire game is focused almost entirely around this combat, with almost no quest or gameplay variety to speak of, the only way it could be really seen as “good” by any stretch is by people who haven’t played other, better games.

But anyway… uh, yeah. tl;dr: I don’t like Skyrim because even though it’s incredibly safe and boring to play… it’s incredibly safe and boring to play.

Like, it’s oddly depressing to hash all this out because I really was excited for Skyrim six years ago, and I did genuinely enjoy it at first. Hell, despite all these problems I’ve still probably put way too many hours into it than I really should have. But nowadays, it just doesn’t feel that interesting. Oblivion, Morrowind, Daggerfall, and ESO are all much, much better games, and even though they have their flaws, they have a lot more interesting ups, as well. Morrowind is all-around an excellent CRPG, Daggerfall is an incredibly interesting roguelikey experience, Oblivion generally has better atmosphere and more quest variety, ESO has great combat and writing, albeit at the expense of stealth and some puzzles.

Skyrim... I dunno. Skyrim is stuck somewhere between being an average game and an undercooked one, and that really eats at me because I know that the franchise can do better. I didn’t even discuss a lot of the other problems I have with the game, just the major ones. But considering that Fallout 4 has a lot of the same issues, but even worse... I worry for what the next entry in the series might be, if it’s handled by Bethesda proper.

#elder scrolls #skyrim #Anonymous

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