Part 7: Get on the Treason Train! Choo CHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Get on the Treason Train! Choo CHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Welcome back! Last time we met a turboracist king who sent us on a really cool diplomatic mission to go treat with the rebels who literally murdered our father in front of us. Then we got ambushed by a bunch of moronic Satanists who declared there would be no peace because their god demanded it, murdered the real diplomat and then got turned into blood splatters by an angry elephant and some randos she met.

Now, let's see what exactly our vast diplomatic skills were supposed to accomplish?



This guard stops us at the door and tells us there's plague quarantine. Helg is upset with bad manners and Hamlin is annoyed we didn't just... climb over the walls of a fucking rebel city. The guards arbitrarily send the caravan back while we are allowed in and Hamlin whines about being called our servant.





Let's take a look at this missive, shall we?


In other words, get fucked Deron-Guld!



I immediately go shopping.



Where Isilmerald has war golems, Deron-Guld has a bunch of giants. I think the solid steel robots are probably better but what do I know?



With these scrolls for Bjalla there's a good chance we never need Siracca again!



Sadly for the LP, I think they patched this quest.

: Is this where Beline used to live?

: Yes, and who are you? Wait, aren't you... Yes, she used to work with you at the estate! You must be her!



I like how she's not in any way mad her hometown launched the assault that murdered her sister.

: Beline told me she was sorry about declining your gift before she left. I came to bring it back to her resting place.




I'm sorry, everyone. I reloaded this a bunch of times, and every time I passed the persuasion check. This is not an automatic reply. If you fail the check, Winona basically says "but it's really pretty and I want to keep it" and you can never ask her again, meaning that she deliberately consigns her sister to an eternity of torment wandering the Espen estate. It's hilarious and I'm mad I can't show it off. Oh well.



We can make unfunny antivax jokes.



Anyway, we need to tell the guards that we're here with the message and we go into full cutscene mode.





Fun fact: there is a known issue with massive loading times. The devs' actual advice is "make sure you install the game on an SSD."





This man is about to completely confuse the hell out of me and it's not my fault.

: Indeed I have, Lord Frelsi, in the form of this letter. And may I extend His Majesty's most felicitous greetings.

: Thank you, milady.



I'm sorry, what the fuck are you doing here? I know he's a high ranking rebel, but we'll get to this.

: I don't bandy insults with outlaws and patricides.

: You- How- I ought to-!

: Lord Aldnar, your temper serves you better on the battlefield than in council. We all of us have more pressing questions to attend to.

Why is Aldnar in command of anything? Keep this question in mind.



: To see whether any of you are ready to give up this foolishness before Deron-Guld is overrun. (Bargain and Persuasion)

The game assumes you didn't read the terms because you're not actually allowed to answer honestly without talking about the ambush.

: Perhaps convening this council was ill advised.

Lady Thora: Well, things have gotten a little out of hand...

Lady Solveig: Like Lord Aldnar, I am most curious to know how you came by your noble title. I had never heard your name before today, Lady Inta Rume.



As far as I can tell nothing you say here really matters.

: I am Lord Espen's heir by Clea Wellgrave, once a servant in his house. Though Aldnar is the eldest, he forfeited his title when he killed my father.

: You'll forfeit more than a title if you don't watch your tongue, swine.

Why are they keeping Aldnar around? He has no title because both his father and the king revoked it. He has no lands. He has no army. His only successful military operation was a tactical success in that he destroyed Lord Espen's estate, but a complete strategic failure because he tarnished his reputation as a patricide, he killed a bunch of persuadable nobles who were debating going over to the rebellion, and he presumably got a decent amount of men killed storming the walls.

Lord Talin: Easy there, Lord Aldnar. You may continue your spat when the council's business is finished.

What exactly does he contribute to the council? When he defected Lord Espen was alive, so presumably he didn't bring in fighting men. It's not really clear if he's a veteran of the Rillow war or not, because as far as I know the Rillow war is only mentioned briefly in the manual and the manual... goes places.



At this point Lord Frelsi has left the room with the missive, which literally just says "give me all your shit or die, there's no negotiation allowed".

: His Majesty is ready to negotiate an agreement than balances Deron-Guld's vast wealth and Isilbright's military prowess (Bargain and Persuasion).

Lady Thora: Spoken like a true diplomat.

: His terms are quite strict: increased taxes, installation of a garrison of loyal troops in Deron-Guld, and a public disavowal of the rebellion by all members of the War Council
(Bargain and Persuasion)

We can, uh, infer this. It doesn't really matter. Maybe I should have taken the latter option?

Lady Cythine: That'll be the day!

Lady Solveig: Strict, she says, more like extortionate.



I should have taken the last option but the lure of using persuasion skills got me.

: His Majesty is promising to relax taxes in return for a larger share of ore and a bigger military commitment from Deron-Guld to protect the kingdom from her enemies (Bargain and Persuasion)

Ok, now we're lying and kinda trying to change the terms here.

Lord Gaenor: That all *sounds* good. I wonder if we could see it in writing.

Lord Zander: Ugh. I already know what promises are worth.



So why didn't it to the class and have them interrogate us instead?

: Get on with it!

Lord Gaenor: Yes, let's have it, Lord Frelsi.

: King Velianrick's demands are as follows...

: The disarming and demobilization of our army.

Lord Talin: No!

Lord Gaenor: That is not going to happen while I sit on this council.



Well, no, what I meant was, your units will be disbanded and the men subsumed into the royal army. We even were told this from the beginning of the game!


I assume we're not just going to leave all the men lying around, especially as there was a Rillow War mentioned in the manual and never mentioned in the game again.



...shit.



Ok, when we come back with the Royal Army I'm having them make you clean all the horseshit.

Lady Solveig: As if the beggary to which we've been reduced is not enough.

Well you have the finances to raise an entire ass army to rebel against the king, so I'm not exactly sympathetic.

Lord Talin: He may as well try and milk a stone.

The thread was discussing how the King is trying to make it seem like diplomacy broke down, but the game told us earlier that rebel forces made it all the way to the outskirts of the royal capital! He doesn't need this to justify mobilizing the royal army and crushing the rebellion. He does NOT need to convince the unaligned nobles, because Aldnar just murdered a whole bunch to satisfy a petty vendetta and now the rebellion can't be trusted. Instead of say, removing Aldnar from command and putting him on trial to win public opinion, they're doing... whatever the hell this is.



I don't even understand the point of this. Shipping overland is expensive at medieval technology, and I don't think there's a river between Deron-Guld and Isilmerald.

Looking it up there's not, you have to march to a lake.

: Outrage upon outrage!



The game at least makes it clear that the terms are deliberately provocative and insulting.



I mean, you guys also dragged a bunch of people into a civil war against the king, what did you expect?

Lord Gaenor: Has Velianrick gone mad? That is the only answer that makes sense to me.

: That is all. Lords and ladies, what say you?



Can we go home now?



I'm not sure if you get around this by telling them Rauche was killed or that the terms really are shit.



Uh, no, we explicitly opened with "kneel before the king or... you DIE!"



Again, why are you here? You have single-handedly fucked over the entire cause of Deron-Guld with the murder of your own father and all those potentially supportive nobles.

Lord Gaenor: Lord Aldnar is right. This is a travesty and I will not partake of it!

Do the others respect him? Why? Blythe called him out as a hot-tempered idiot, and that is absolutely NOT the person you want commanding your forces because they can be provoked into doing something stupid. As we saw.



Not sure why he gets a portrait. Sidequest maybe?



When the royal army sacks the city you will be spared.



I... I don't know why you think this. Is it because you're stupid? That's not a joke by the way, half the nobles in the game have been portrayed as useless buffoons. The king literally wrote a letter saying "give me everything you possess and I will not negotiate on this matter".



I can't blame Zander here because Frelsi didn't read THAT part. As it stands we have a letter from the king stating that the terms cannot be changed by anyone.



The game almost wants to comment on the uselessness of the nobility but decides against it.

Lord Talin: Whatever the council's feelings on these matters, no decisions may be made without every member's participation.

Is that why Aldnar hasn't been booted out? Everyone trusts the man who looks like an untrustworthy angry criminal who also used your soldiers to murder his own father and squander the rebellion's support?

: Lord Talin is right. Let's adjourn for now and think on these matters privately.

: Lady Inta Rume? Would you attend me in my chambers please?



The game is trying to do something with Frelsi but doesn't have the writing chops to pull it off.


The game is trying to make Lord Frelsi seem like a highly competent man who started the rebellion over legitimate grievances and never wanted it to come to blows. The problem is that none of this writing makes sense. He's supposed to be trustworthy because he's an old friend of our father's, but none of that is mentioned! The conspirators in the beginning don't mention him at all, even though you'd think someone would say something like "Your old friend Lord Frelsi is a trustworthy man, why would he do this"?

: Thank you for your kind words. Your compatriots didn't seem to be particularly open-minded about the missive from Isilbright.



: Aldnar is a bastard. Being one myself, I know better than most.



: I should tell you; I knew your father. He was a good man. Stubborn and wrong about who he supported, but a good man nonetheless.

Remember, Frelsi doesn't know about the Treason Meeting.



: I had expected some surprise, but not outright hostility.

: Well, you see... I reached out to your father as the rebellion began. I believed he would understand the reasons behind our cause.



Wait, what? How did this happen?


If Lord Espen declared for the king, why was this happening in his house? Now, we can guess what happened - the weird Satan cult guys who killed Rauche and converted Aldnar intervened here and ambushed the messenger because they want the war to continue.



Wait, hold up. Aldnar organized a unit of conscripts into a force capable of marching from Deron-Guld to the Espen Estate - which is very close to the capital - without being detected by royal scouts, organized these men who had not fought together into a cohesive army that outnumbered the bodyguard forces of at least five powerful nobles, and managed to storm a defended castle with them?

: My father killed your messenger? That seems unlike the man I once knew.



We don't have the option to tell Frelsi that he was still debating going over to the rebels at the meeting in the beginning OR about the people who ambushed Rauche.

We don't have a full picture, Frelsi doesn't have a full picture, and at this point the king's kind of hung us out to dry. The game wants us to believe Frelsi's trustworthy because he's an old friend of our father's - and I'll give it to you straight, Frelsi is on the level. None of this Satan cult shit is any of Frelsi's doing.

Of course, we can't tell Frelsi that Aldnar is into Satan garbage even though he was bragging about it like an idiot to his father before killing him.



: Aldnar murdered our father in cold blood. That many troops on the road and no one noticed them missing?



...and this was OK? Wouldn't all of these troops answer to the actual lords they swore oaths to? If Frelsi was a longtime advisor to King Velianrick, wouldn't he have fought in the Rillow War? Did Aldnar provide his own contingent of troops? Where did they come from? Why didn't they discipline Aldnar for misusing their troops? What is Aldnar bringing to this War Council aside from his own sword and poor impulse control? Are there other Satanists on the war council? Why can't we tell Frelsi that Aldnar basically bragged about worshipping Satan? Deron-Guld has a temple of Alnarius, they're not ALL Satanists.

: Well, he is dead now and there is nothing to be done about it.

Unfortunately, we're railroaded into being a fucking idiot. Now, admittedly, we have little leverage, but we are here as an emissary of the King, who has entire armies and golems mobilizing to crush the rebellion.

: What you say is true. But you must understand...

: The King sent you here as an insult.



Yes, and? I get it, but there's another message too. You killed Lord Espen, but you didn't destroy his house. Second, Espen acknowledged us as his legitimate heir in his last will. We can of course tell Frelsi none of this, presumably because we're a scullery maid and all the snooty nobles are mad that we used to be a commoner.



You don't say. We get the option to call them out as traitors, and Henry VIII would have attaindered all of these dumbasses by now.

: Well, so far as I can tell, at least some of you deserve it. One of you in particular.



No shit! The king has shown that he's willing to promote or demote nobles.

With Aldnar's help, the rebellion has shown they're willing to MURDER nobles.

Guess which is worse?

: So then what is to be done about the missive?

: The other nobles and I will need time to discuss a response. The mood at the moment seems... well, rather hostile. I am more inclined toward keeping lines of communication open, despite the King's insult. But there are other, pressing matters which I must also attend to, of more immediate import.



: There are bodies piled in the streets of your city. What's going on?



: Yes. You'll have noticed on your way into the city that there are very few people out on the streets. Alive, anyway. You'll also have noticed the markings on buildings, denoting houses where the plague has taken root. Nobody is allowed inside those places and nobody out.

: A month ago, citizens of Deron-Guld and our soldiers stationed here began to come down with a terrible illness. It is a terrible wasting illness; it begins with coughing and progresses to fever and death. Healers, priests, and wizards alike sought for a cure, but have come up with nothing.



This doesn't necessarily mean throwing people into the meatgrinder as my main man Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus would have you know, but considering context it does. In this context... why? Throwing people into the meatgrinder is both a sure way to destroy your own morale and lose support for the cause. Is the king really that bad that people are going to be willing to die in droves to topple him? You certainly don't seem to have popular support as you're relying heavily on conscription.



In other words we can just... go the hell home. The rebellion is fucked. We delivered the terms. They have no fighting men and Aldnar proved the rebels are perfectly willing to just murder nobility.

: What is the state of the war against Isilbright?

: It is not going well, I'm afraid. Our forces are stretched thin across the countryside. We recently had some sort of sabotage in the iron mines, which has halted production of weapons and trade goods. The war has drawn out too long without many decisive victories and it is hurting morale.




Jesus Christ! So a bunch of the townsfolk resent being dragged into this war, the rebel leader admits he has no resources left to fight, they're low on food, they can't produce iron, they're all dying of plague...

: What are your duties here?



Wait, so you're the commander of the armies? Why didn't you punish Aldnar? Why does no one seem to care that he went rogue? Does he have political support? The Council seemed to barely tolerate him and considered him a hotheaded dumbass.



: You mentioned disappearances?



What about all those men on the streets?

Seriously, this rebellion's fucked.

: I think I have heard enough. What must be done before you can attempt to convince the War Council to move forward with diplomacy?



Good! That's where we want you! Surrender!



NO! We don't want you to be able to continue the war!

: Can I have some time to think about it?



Why not? We've got you by the nuts! I get our character isn't supposed to be a cutthroat diplomat, but this is literally a case of when your enemy is self-destructing don't do anything to stop it.

Incidentally, if we tell him no, he just says this.




None of this makes sense. Frelsi basically tipped his hand and showed he had nothing. Instead of going "alright, without royal assistance this city is going to die and you're losing support" Frelsi refuses to surrender. The game decides suddenly we want to help Frelsi because... why, exactly? Even if we despised the king this is not a winning hand. The rebellion isn't standing up on behalf of the common folk, the rebellion is a bunch of rich nobles mad that they have to pay taxes to that poopy ol' King. Shit, the king promised us we could keep any lands we conquered, if we act quickly enough we might be able to take out a loan to hire mercs and just march into Deron-Guild, making us king of the iron mines. I get what the game is trying to do, Frelsi is supposed to be a good man trapped in an awful situation not of his making, but his response to "your soldiers murdered my father" is "eh, whatever". It's fucking baffling!



Why is Lord Espen "my master" instead of "my father"?



I swallow what little remains of my pride and pledge us to continue the game.

: Very well. What must I do?

: I am still debating what might be done about the plague. But in the meantime, I have a lead on the disappearances that I would like you to investigate. The two may well be connected, as well.

How? It's a fucking plague!




Might as well turn in the golden conch, but this whole time I begin to wonder. If we go to the king and tell him that possibly the rebels killed Rauche, but also that the Deron-Guld rebellion is on the brink of collapse, will the developers have thought of that in any conceivable way?



: Yes, I brought the golden shell.



Well, that's a lot better than we usually do. This choice doesn't matter as far as reward goes - you can be a real dick and get 1 gp, but the nicer you are the less GREED you get.

: Farewell, Beline. May you find peace in the next life.

: Thank you, my friend. My last thoughts in this world are of gratitude for your kindness.

This feels like it should be meaningful considering how she spent all her life yelling at Inta Rume, a trained swordsmen, to fetch and serve drinks, but whatever! It's a ton of XP!




So what happens if we go see the king? Is he not going to let us in? Is he going to be mad and think we deserted? Are we going to get a big choice to help the king for one final push to end this rebellion forever?



Nope! I don't know if this is a bug, but he literally gives the exact same speech he gave last update!



Seriously! Even though that caravan with the horses and teamsters all went back to the capital with the news, apparently no one told the king and he's doing the same shit.



The only difference is that we don't get kicked out of the palace immediately. Is this a bug? What a fucking joke!



Dammit.

Next time: Memba Baldur's Gate?