Part 14: The Bad Man

The Bad Man


You're gonna love today's update!

Last time on Black Geyser, causality fucking broke down and we picked up some woman who may or may not be a Zoria cultist to go cure the plague in the Traitor Town that both the Eastern Empires and Isilbright are now allied against without any negotiation.

Also an exploding demon guy uncursed the king.

I have no fucking idea how any of this works.



Isla is probably one of the contenders for "worst character in the game". Mechanically she's acceptable and can blow people up with magic (though you can't change her spell loadout because fuck you), but because she's one of those lazy fantasy characters who knows all the plot and context but only doles it out in pieces because the devs want to keep the mystery box.

Now I want to remind you that per the Steam Achievement stats, only 10% of players have completed chapter 3. There is no way anyone is seeing this plot and going ""I need to know more", you are only finishing the game because you're masochistic. Hell, I only finished the game because of this thread.



By the way, there's no journal entry on Isla and the interact button is disabled. I hope you weren't looking for some kind of explanation that she was just infiltrating the Zoria cult to sabotage them or anything logical like that, because it's not here.



The writers suddenly realize that we're on Chapter 4 of 5 and we don't know what the fuck the "Final Pact" is referring to, much less whatever the hell a Black Geyser actually is.

: Everywhere I go, I seem to be at the center of the action.

: And you have no idea how envious that would make some people.

Did I mention you get a game over if Isla dies?



: He didn't offer a lot of details. He called everyone fools, said nothing could prevent the 'final pact', and that King Velianrick's reign was over. Oh yeah, and that chaos would rule in his place. That's about it.



I can just imagine the Black Geyser writers right now.
"We need to exposit on the Final Pact and the artists are whining we didn't use the snow area."
"Hmm... what if we had Isla make the player go to Snow Town for some exposition?"
"Yea but then people are going to think our special OC magical sexy wise waifu is a monster who abandons plague victims to die"
"What if Deron-Guld shut all the gates for absolutely no reason?"
"Brilliant! I'm gonna go write another time travel quest!"

: People are dying from the plague in Deron-Guld right now.



I... no! NO!

: But why?



So is he like a disease expert or medicine maker or something? No. Are you going to share your reasons with the class? No.

: But that's in the opposite direction!



Unlike with Lord Frelsi we're not even given the option to postpone the clumsy railroading.

: Very well, to Freynagar we go!



You have been in this party for a minute and already you are making a terrible impression.




Maybe we can commiserate with Hamlin.

: Why are you so determined to join the Thieves Guild anyway?



Oh, no, he just has a very tragic backstory.

: Ye gods, how horrible!

: Indeed.

: Thanks to my ready charm, I was soon adopted by a trio of street urchins. It was a hardscrabble few years but we watched each others' backs, kept ourselves alive at least. A few years back I managed to find real employment, for yet another rich bastard. Isilbright is rife with them. My street family did not approve of my owning a second shirt and sleeping on fresh straw, and I myself couldn't stand my employer.

Hmm... a trio of street urchins... three people delivering the painting... nah.




It's really bizarre to me that Hamlin is having this much trouble getting into the Thieves Guild when he works directly for one of the King's advisors and could feed them all sorts of information.

Then again, we're helping him do this because, uh... there's XP?


This raises all sorts of questions, like "does Hamlin hate us for being a noble too", "are we not feeding him", etc. Say what you want about status, but we literally helped Hamlin interrogate a Duchess to her face and got away with it. The idea of having "freedom" by joining a criminal organization sure is... an idea.



Anyway to get to Snow Town we need to go through the mountains.



Under the "throw it in" principle, the forest is full of ice elementals. This Hunter runs off screaming.

Inta will be soloing the elementals to save arrows and spell slots.



This guy has a whole quest line I just can't be enthused to care about.



The fights aren't interesting, but at least they're not hard.



I'll spare you the blathering. These guys are bandits who want 1000 gp, but they have a whole spiel about how they're from Other Snow Town and hate Snow Town We're Supposed To Go To because the plot town got a magical shield against the weather that, uh, lets the snow through or something. We can't persuade them and they think they're hot shit because they've got a frost giant.



We fuck em up.



There's a moderate wrinkle in that they have ice spells that can actually kinda hurt Inta, but their mages are made of tissue paper and die to a combination of fireballs and Hamlin shooting them in the face.



They are kind enough to drop this "famous Feldegug relic" because, uh, idk.



Freynagar sucks and has nothing.



Isla opens with this.



You know, Isla, you're really not helping your case by making it seem like you dragged us up here to get some dick.

: Uh...



It would probably help if Isla didn't look like a vampire or some shit.

: Since you're still here, I suppose I must ask - What do you want?



I want you all to remember this is Chapter 4 of 5 and this is the first we are hearing of it. It has never been mentioned before now, and the only vague thing we have is that the cults are motivated to keep the war going for, uh, reasons.



: Many a man of the gods has been forced to drink by the truths he must face. Please, tell my friend what she wants to know and we will bother you no more. (Theology)

: Yes, I cannot deny that. Very well.

Don't ask how Isla knows that Drykkr knows this. One of her attack quotes is "Die, mortals!" Is she a god? Some kind of renegade demon? A never before mentioned angel of Alnarius? Some kind of lich? Who the fuck knows!



: I would like to get a look at such a place myself.



But wait! Why did the demon dude talk about the Final Pact? Do Zornilsa and Rothgor not know that their pact is going to fail? Did the exploding demon dude know about the prophecy?

: What comes after that? Does the sun go out too?



Oh, so he told literally everyone? I guess that's how Isla knows.

: Go on.

This is also the only indication we have that the Alnarian church might be corrupt, and as you might guess literally nothing is done with it. Remember, priests in this game can dream for visions from their god.



Yea, apparently the Alnarian church knew that this curse of greed - which is heavily implied to have caused the war - was coming and did absolutely nothing to mitigate it. There are churches of Alnarius in both cities and Velianrick straight up says his kingly powers stem from Alnarius. No one seems to have the idea to ask the church to mediate the dispute, and they're apparently fine just letting the gods of evil wander around and do whatever.

: Is that all you learned of the prophecy? Was there nothing else?



This temple is one of the worst parts of the game.

: Could you repeat that please, Drykkr?

: The temple of Alvimelkedic. That's all I know.



: This is a bad place to drink yourself unconscious, because of the cold. You should remember that.

: Huh. If you think death worries me, you weren't listening at all.



This had nothing to do with the plague. We could have found this man at any time. We could have done this after curing the people of Deron-Guld. You are the fucking worst, Isla.




This town has nothing except garbage side quests so we leave.



I stop by the crone's cottage to see if maybe she has anything to say but she's disappeared. On to Deron-Guld!



The townsfolk are all hostile! Le gasp!



: No, I was planning on a romantic interlude for just the two of us. The horde of raging infected, attacking everyone in sight, was just a lure.

Sometimes I feel like there is one lone sane writer who realizes what a fucking incoherent mess they created and went out of their way to ensure none of it was taken seriously.

: Don't ever let anyone say you don't know how to treat a lady, Inta Rume.

: Very well. Look alert and let's move on.


You know, when we left the city this wasn't happening. Maybe if we hadn't wasted all that time traveling north to ask a drunk guy about shit we could have gotten from the Alnarius church at any fucking time we could have prevented this.

Fuck you, Isla.



The survivors are barred up inside.



There are a lot of tedious fights with infected people, ghouls, and the occasional mage. I'll cut out most of them, as Inta just kind of solos her way through all this crap.



Isla examines the bodies and comes to this stunning conclusion after three screens of text. Now, half these people have been mutated into fucking ghouls - you know, the undead summonable with Rothgor's unnatural magic - so I have no idea why we needed to go through so much crap to get this utterly useless woman.



Seeing as our character recognizes the ghouls' bones are useful for potions I'm not sure what to say.



Hilariously, Isla levels up but we're not allowed to level her up because she knows every spellweaver spell of V or less in the game.



Remember the maid in the library that Lord Frelsi was teaching to read?

: Who are you?



: Try to stay still and perhaps I can help you.

: I'm not going anywhere.



You're telling me in a game where Jade can learn to resurrect the dead, the temples of Alnarius can resurrect the dead, and we can buy resurrection staves in stores, we can't help this woman who's still fully conscious and able to talk?

: What in heaven's name is going on here?



Wow! The obviously bad man betrayed everyone? Who could have seen this coming?



Yes, Isla, thank you. I don't know what we'd do without you, probably be higher level as you're taking our XP.

: Thank you for your strength. Your information will help us find a solution for this.

Hilariously, we're not given the opportunity to ask her name so we can remember her despite her obvious sadness at no one mourning her.

: I only wish... I only... :: sigh ::

: That's it. She is done.






These guys tell us the guildhall is closed by order of Aldnar and that Aldnar has ordered us killed on sight.



They don't make it.



A few more tedious soldier fights later and, well... you just need to see this.



The entire game has, as far as I can tell, been building up to this. Aldnar was introduced as the closest thing this game has to a main antagonist. Also that halberd guy walks to the left. Remember this for later.



Uh, what the fuck?

: Ye gods, what have you done?



: But why, man? Why did you do it?




: What proof did you have of Lord Frelsi's corruption?



I really regret not taking option 2.

: How did Lord Frelsi die?



: I see. What do you intend to do next?



What?

No, seriously, what? Where is this coming from? If you remember, our last interaction with Aldnar was this:


Now, the game uses "Espen" or "Lady Espen" as the default voice acted player character descriptor instead of "Fatebinder" or "Employee", but Aldnar shouldn't be using it here! He's the eldest heir to the Espen house, and the king stripped him of his birthright and if you don't call him a patricidal outlaw he'll whine more about it. I think he's turning on the charm here, but those soldiers from a few screens ago had orders to kill us on sight.



I mentioned that there was a truly idiotic choice that let you kill the king earlier. This is it. We can, if you so choose, ally with Aldnar, the man who murdered and betrayed both his own father AND the Deron-Guld rebellion in the hopes of becoming betrayal victim number three from a guy who's openly stated his hatred and resentment of us, murdered everyone who lived in our childhood home, instructed his men to kill us on sight, and loudly brags about worshipping Satan to the father he murders. The man has been built up as a villain all game who we've been given cause to despise personally. Nevertheless, I am going to leave the vote to the thread, because it's funny.

What are we telling Aldnar?

For bonus points I want to see someone try and actually justify why in the world our character would think joining Team Aldnar is a good idea.