wildwoods-sworn - Tumblr blog

[wildwoods-sworn]

SoD, god rest its soul, prepared me for almost any and all kind of MMO bullshittery

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Red Warbler (Cardellina rubra), family Parulidae, Oaxaca, Mexico

Photograph by Jason Tiesman

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The yeti quest was fun :(

Wake up SSOBlr, new game blog just dropped

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This is the tiny rat man that lives in my pocket rent free

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All I'm saying is other than the fireflies carrying Aideen's Light I only know of a single person pouring with the same green aura

Somebody's been fucking lying

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Also...I'm not the only one who got the impression that the rune runner was a shapeshifted Wynna, right? I wonder what "that horse just disappeared" dialogue option would have given

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Fuck your dream job what’s your dream hobby that you don’t have the means to take up yet. Mine are falconry and aerial acrobatics

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First of all, GOOD.

Second, the fact that the old wiki will stay up is to be expected. There are cases of Fandom refusing to take down wikis even at the request of admins. It is their source of revenue, and they are not known to let go easily.

Once the new wiki is up and running, all of us need to make an effort to stop using the Fandom site and start using the new one. With enough user interaction, the new site will win google's algorithm battle and start showing up first in searches.

Fandom can have its ad-ridden garbage ai train wreck to itself.

[wildwoods-sworn]

Darkness surrounds you.

Far below you, the ocean waves crash and roar. If you looked down, you would see nothing. You do not look down. Your eyes are fixed on the book in your hand. It is an ancient, leather-bound tome. Despite its hundreds of pages, it feels light. Warm. Its cover is etched with glowing runes. The light is not enough to show the way, but it grounds you. It is a reminder of your mission. Of your importance today. Of your importance here and now. Of how crucial it is that you do not fail. You have been undisturbed so far, but something is always lurking around the corner here. You must not lose focus.

You have kept your horse at full speed since you grabbed the book. Its hooves beat steadily against the ground. The sound of metal against metal is almost drowned out by your heartbeat. You still do not know why you are running, only that you must. From the black sky falls large, cold raindrops. They pelt against your face as your horse runs. Every freezing drop hurts. Your skin is beginning to grow numb from the cold.

The darkness is closing in. Something about it is deeply wrong. It is less like pitch black and more like nothingness. Like the world ceases to be where it begins. Your heart is beating louder. Faster. You can hardly hear your horse’s hooves against the ground over the sound of your heartbeat. Something is wrong. You are being watched.

Far away, there are hoofsteps. Somebody is behind you. Your horse is already running as fast as it can. It has been doing so for too long by now. Your only hope is that whoever is behind you is just slow enough to let you get back to safety.

The hoofsteps become louder and louder. It is all too clear now that the darkness is not of the night, but of something far, far deeper. It is closing in on you more and more. You cannot see the oil rig anymore. Your vision is beginning to blur. Your horse runs a little faster. A little faster again. Your stomach turns. An animal knows when it is in danger. Your horse runs a little faster yet.

From behind you comes the sound of echoing, almost ghastly hoofsteps. From beneath you comes the sound of metal horseshoes on metal ground. From within you comes the sound of your racing heart. They melt into a cacophony of clanking and beating and fear. The darkness grows closer and closer until you can hardly see. All you can do is hold on to hope and trust in your horse. The hoofsteps behind you are terribly close. You are beginning to feel faint. The bright runes of the Book of Light are but a gentle glow beyond a thickening veil of darkness. The hoofsteps behind you are as loud as your own horse’s.

Then, everything becomes quiet except for the ringing in your ears. Perhaps there was a sound so loud it was deafening. Perhaps all sound disappeared entirely. It hardly matters. All you can do is keep pushing forward. Magic threatens to surge through you. Pushing it back is so instinctual that it is almost easy. You do not let it run its course. You cannot.

Darkness envelops you entirely. All that exists is the cold, hard rain. You hardly feel it hit your almost completely numb skin. You cannot see. You cannot hear. You cannot think. There is a sensation that feels almost like an earthquake. The ground rumbles beneath you. Everything is impossibly hot and impossibly cold. It is possible that you scream. If you do, you cannot hear it.

Less than a moment later, sight and sound return to you. All you can hear is your horse’s hoofsteps and the wind in your ears. Safety is only seconds away. You dare a glance at the Book of Light. The sight makes you wish you were back to seeing nothing. In your hand is a black, burnt scrap of paper and leather. Not one rune or letter is legible. Your stomach turns. Was the blast of darkness meant for you? Was the book protecting you? Were you meant to be burnt to a crisp without even being lit aflame, just like the book? Or was the destruction only ever meant for the book? Was the book’s glow until the very end a failed attempt to withstand the darkness?

You are mere steps away from safety. Whoever was chasing you has retreated. The danger is gone.

So is your hope.

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It is a calm and quiet morning. The last minutes before dawn bathe the island’s blanket of snow in a muted, blue glow, and the day lies open before you.

The Druids called off your training today. Supposedly, they thought you all deserved a day’s rest. Something tells you that it might be more about earning back your favour, or perhaps more likely feeling like you have stalled in your progress and not much can be done to help it. Pouring salt in the wound is the fact that rest, of course, isn’t an option. Though you haven’t been summoned for training, the weight of what is to come still lies heavy overhead.

You are to retrieve the Book of Light from Dark Core’s headquarters.

You suspect this is the third reason training has been called off. In the safety and secrecy of Fripp’s room, the innermost circle of Druids are planning the expedition. The innermost circle except for you and the other four, that is. Sometimes, you wonder if you are even counted to that group anymore, or if you all lost that privilege after the transformation of Concorde. You know that the other Soul Riders wonder, too. None of you speak of it. Anne doesn’t only wonder, she believes it, and she doesn’t need to hear anything that would further solidify that belief.

When you heard of the mission to come, you were tossed back to the night you had just left behind. In your dreams, you had held an ancient tome. It was the only thing you could see. Your horse was galloping, and the sound of your own heartbeat almost drowned out the clanking of metal against metal. You’re still not sure why you were running.

You awoke before the moon could tell you how it all had ended. It plays over and over and over in your head; whether it is a vision again or just your mind wandering, you cannot tell. You think you may now know what the book was, and that knowledge does not make the weight of the vision easier on you. Each time your mind is brought back to it, the pit of dread in your stomach grows deeper and deeper, and you try more and more desperately to hold onto the hope that it will end well.

When you exit the village, your mind calms for a moment. Few things are on your mind, and they are all peaceful. Your horse’s fur is warm and soft; a stark contrast to your cold body, and a much-needed one. The forest now glows golden as thin beams of sun begin to filter through the leaves and reach over the snow-covered ground. Overhead, the leaves rustle in a gentle, cold breeze.

The wind turns and becomes a sharp, cold gust that chills you to the bone and raises every hair on your body. It came from the river. More likely than not, it travelled here from the ocean. How far out into the ocean did it begin, you wonder? Did it come from the bay between Fort Pinta and South Hoof, or did it come from the wide open waters beyond, travelling first across the peninsula? Was it born over the cold eastern seas, travelling all the way around the island to reach you here in the forest? Far into the ocean, well beyond Jorvik’s southeastern shores, lies the oil rig. There, it is colder than anywhere else on and around the island, except for possibly the frozen valley north of Hollow Woods. Is it there the freezing wind came from?

A shiver runs down your spine. The wind seems to have calmed, and yet cold still swirls around you, slowly but surely making itself at home in your flesh and bones. Somewhere far into the ocean, freezing cold rain pelts against a towering metal structure. It should not be raining, of course, but some things go beyond the understanding and rules of even the universe itself. Whenever you close your eyes, even if it’s only to blink, you feel like the rain is pouring down on you, cold and merciless, and when you open them again you find yourself shivering even though you’re dressed more than warm enough for the weather. It is a familiar feeling, and one you had hoped you would never experience again: you are slipping away from reality.

You are in the depths of the forest now, and yet you do not remember continuing down the path from Valedale. The day is so bright that it must have been at least an hour since you left the village. It crosses your mind that this, too, could be a vision, but you dismiss the thought. This must be real. Your horse’s mane is warm when you weave your fingers into it, and you can feel every last strand of horsehair against your skin. A vision would have a goal; it would not allow you to focus on such mundane details.

Whether or not this is true, you don’t particularly care to find out. It is enough of a truth that you can hold onto it. It is also far from the first method you have invented for determining whether or not a moment is real; should it fail, it would not be the first to do so, and you doubt it would be impossible for you to come up with yet another.

Still, the methods grow more and more abstract. You can only go through so many of them without reality and unreality becoming irreversibly intertwined. Something has to happen before then. For a time, you could intuit what was life and what was vision, and there has to be a way for you to relearn that skill.

You only have to find it.

You realise suddenly that you and your horse have not moved since you took a hold of its mane. For a moment longer, you stay in the quiet, unchanging forest, a warm ray of sun on your back, and then you urge your horse forward. It is about time for a change of scenery.

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Moorland is intact. Epona lighthouse and the hill it stood on are gone. Dews' farm is still in the same place, but it's at the edge of the water now.

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These two tidbits of dialogue are gonna rattle around in my skull for the next week at least.

I think that Keepers of Aideen and druids have only been used as synonyms in the past, but this actually makes a ton of sense. Soul Riders are keepers, but they aren't druids (sans Alex). Farah and Conrad are druids, but they aren't keepers (not in on the whole Garnok thing). Elizabeth was the leader of druids. Fripp is the leader of the keepers.

And maybe I've just forgotten early game quests, but this may be the first time someone plainly explained the function of runestones. It lends much more clarity to the certain witches' desire to break them.

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Also...I'm not the only one who got the impression that the rune runner was a shapeshifted Wynna, right? I wonder what "that horse just disappeared" dialogue option would have given

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There is an answer to Wynna's identity, but it's very missable depending on the dialogue choice you make

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I'm not the only one seeing little tree branch wrapped backpacks all over the place right