Part 4: Let's Not Do Any Sidequests

Let's Not Do Any Sidequests

Welcome back! Last time we impressed a snow elf maiden by making a dude pretend to piss his pants. Today we're going to do some sidequests and make significant progress on snapping the game in half.



Anyway, we had some nonsense to do in the Hall of Records that is thankfully done.



Hamlin prepares to fuck us over.

: Why is that exactly?



If this game didn't have traps I would dump your corpse in a bush somewhere. Then again, how would I ever hear "I would like. A beer please. Thank you."

: Alright, alright. You can come.

I can't show off his dickery if I don't do this, now can I?

: Good! Thank you, Inta Rume.




This man has a whole spiel where he left his invitation scroll - to the royal palace - in the library and treats us like shit because we're commoners so we need to go get it back. Now, seeing as the royal guard are insistent that only nobility or people directly escorted by nobility are allowed in the archives, I have no idea why he thinks we're random commoners, but again nothing in this game makes sense.



We get the scroll and have the dreaded end of sidequest choice: you can either return the fetch item for nothing, take the reward offered, or demand more things. This varies slightly in that our options are "keep fetched item" - which is not uncommon - but it's your main way of interacting with the GREED curse. The more quest reward you receive the higher party and world greed goes.

Of course, we're kind of an estateless noble right now with only our expensive weapons and armor, but the developers love displaying their inability to think ahead or come up with anything remotely interesting.



I go to the embassy and realize it's locked because it's the middle of the night. Time to find something else to do.



This is an encounter I deliberately avoided last night for reasons I'll soon explain.



Siracca here is a party member, and our final party member to get her own manual entry.

: Hmm. What's going on here?

: Please, I have nothing left I can give to your master.



: Then why talk at all? Why not just plant a blade in my back?



So, remember how we are explicitly a rillow woman? The game will not.

: Leave that woman alone.



See, this is exactly the kind of shit where the game should realize that WE are a rillow and these guys try to appeal to our rillow pride in that djinni guy who's totally not Amaunator from Baldur's Gate, or literally anything than giving us dialog options that make us sound like a disguised space alien talking to humans.

"Fellow hu-mans, why do you harass the feeemale????"

: Young lady, do you have some business with these... men?

We're not even that old!



Now we get to ask about rillow culture - which makes sense, given that we were raised by Lord Espen in the Treason House, but we again sound like a sectoid pretending to be human.

: But isn't Elenuator your master as well, and master of all Rillow?

: Not all Rillow, no. I no longer answer to Elenuator. I've turned to the light of Alnarius. To him I pray now, and to him I have consecrated my faith. Elenuator has reacted badly to my decision.

We are also right outside the temple of Alnarius, for what it's worth. Fortunately none of the guards who seem to maybe have Alnarius worship as a state religion are anywhere nearby despite being posted all over the streets. Huh.



The developers seem to have taken theology lessons from Warhammer 40k. This is apostasy, as Siracca has abandoned the faith completely.

: Is knowing how to count part of a Rillow assassin's training? Because I believe the numbers are in our favor.

Ryge: Damn your interfering! Very well, breathe the fresh air awhile[sic] longer, Siracca. But to your new friends, I say this: any associate of this heretic will be marked just the same.



The game kindly forces Beavis and Butthead to run off and Siracca spouts off some shit.

: I thought priests were peaceful?

: Not when our lives are in danger. Or those of innocents.



This is a blatant fucking lie that we'll get to in a minute.

: Yes, agreed. Welcome to the party!

: Thank you. Let me know if you need any healing.


So, Siracca, or "Siracca the Heretic" as the manual calls her.


Some people might ask, "if the Rillow are hedonistic and love expensive jewelry and fine things how are they resistant to the greed curse?" I don't have an answer.



Siracca is unfortunately a cleric and clerics fucking suck. We mentioned in the class writeup that the spellweaver mage - aka Bjalla, who is currently in our fourth party slot and I will personally override any attempts to remove her from the party - can cast all of the healing spells that we actually need in addition to crapping out summons, CC, and damage spells. Siracca here can heal, but her spell list doesn't have a lot going for it.

You'll also notice that her resistances are pretty low and her armor is "robe". There are a few properties of heavy armor that should interest anyone who wants to snap this game in half and put absolutely no effort into it, and one of them is that by stacking full plate armor and various magic items you can get slashing, stabbing, and "pulse & blow" (bludgeoning) resistance all over 100%. This works exactly how you think it works, in that you can send your warrior into a whole horde of sword guys or claw monsters and they take absolutely no damage whatsoever. Siracca cannot do this. So we have a character who cannot cast useful spells and cannot fight and thus is going to be the first woman out of the party as soon as we have more options.



Moving on! Lord Markhem is hanging around the embassy of Zida-Suda and offered us a reward for finding his bracelet, so off we go.



I've missed a whole ton of party dialog with Siracca because it's boring, but here's the one I did catch.

: The Rillow? Pfft, never. A bitter, covetous mob they are. The fact I once counted myself one of them is enough shame in itself.

Uh, what the fuck are you, and why are you stereotyping Inta?

: But what of your family, your friends?

: Among the Rillow I have neither anymore.

It's actually super fucking offensive because Inta is right there.




Lord Markhem: I apologize that you had to wait on your reward, but I trust you will understand my situation. I unfortunately have a weakness for certain vices, and Lord Durbat chose to capitalize on this fact at the exact wrong time.



It's... another greed decision! That's kind of how all the sidequests go, and there is a definitely paucity of anything remotely interesting or like actual decisions into how to resolve these things. Witcher 3 this ain't.

: Yes, that sounds fair. Happy I could help.

Lord Markhem: Glad to have made your acquaintance, madam.



: Tell me about yourself, Lord Markhem.



Lord Markhem: I am the last of the Markhem line, who were once a great family among the Isilbright nobility. But every one of my relations took to their various vices, and were destroyed by them over the course of only a few decades, as if a curse had fallen upon us. Neither was a single heir born to my people.

Lord Markhem: I am not immune to this problem - as you have already seen - though I have mostly been able to control it. Devoting my life to diplomacy with Zida-Suda has provided a much needed distraction. Some time ago, I made the decision to end the Markhem bloodline. I refuse to pass on what seems to be a terrible curse.



: I need to go, Lord Markhem. Farewell.




For taking the quest reward we didn't ask for that was freely offered, greed points go up. Now, we legitimately need to go into combat with dangerous monsters to prove our birthright because we don't exactly have the skills for a real job, and money helps us do that. The greed system is really poorly thought out. I'll show some more in a second.



We need to talk to Fjora in the embassy concerning Helg's quest to stop a civil war by leaving his family to do stupid shit.

: A friend of mine needs some advice from an expert on the north. Hallbrag from the Hall of Records said you were knowledgeable about recent events in the area.

Consul Fjora: Sure. Tell me your story and I'll help if I can.



: If something isn't done, I fear bloodshed is inevitable. I have a niece from the other bloodline, and my heart would weep should any harm come to her or her family. I must find a way to return peace to those dim halls. That is why I've come to Isilbright.

Consul Fjora: Your bravery and commitment to truth is commendable, Helgenhar. I feel a responsibility to every dwarven clan, and I confess I have a particular fondness for the Stoneseekers - though it's been long and long since I've seen any of that clan in person.

Consul Fjora: I will look into the deeper context of this problem with the Stoneseekers. I was one of the negotiators in the feud between Freynagar and Riznagar, you know, not an easy knot to untangle. Return later, once I've had some time to work on this.

Consul Fjora: Until then, goodbye, my friends.




They just didn't bother to space out the dialogs, so you just get a bunch of uninteresting gimmick one-note interactions dumped out.



Gavin apparently was just let into the city no questions asked. No one wanted to quarantine him because he might carry the plague, no one bothered to ask him what the hell was going on in Deron-Guld, no one bothered to question if he was an enemy spy. He just set up right in the market square, because nothing in this game makes sense.



: "Ho?" What an odd way to greet someone.

: I should think seeing it written would be particularly vexing.



I think this is sarcasm, but with the writing it's real hard to tell. Anyway, Tolbard here is a blacksmith. He has his own manual entry I'm not pasting here but he doesn't have any quests or anything. He just sells weapons and armor.



We grab some full plate stuff for Inta and get her actually fairly high resistances. This is not the end of this quest, and I fully plan to minmax the shit out of her so I can autopilot trash mobs to death.



This guy lives in the Temple of Alnarius, and I'm going to use him to reinforce a valuable lesson.

: What has happened to threaten the safety of Yerengal?

Don't do sidequests, because they're boring and they suck.

: A grim shadow has fallen upon many regions of Yerengal, including our own humble kingdom. Unnatural creatures are becoming more and more common, threatening all of Alnarius and Tilindia's creations.



Naturally, Brother Wembly's part is to sit in the temple and eat Cheetos.

: That sounds like a serious problem. All right, I'll do what I can.

: Wonderful! Ever blessed are the righteous. I've had report of another horde of these abominations approaching the city from the southwest, along the Merchant's Road. Ensure you dispatch every last one of them.




So while our intrepid band of heroes are busily roaming the map looking for the undead let's talk about magic.



Each class has their own spell list for the most part, except spellweaver casts nearly everything. Spells are divided into level and then further divided into "base-energy" and "elevated-energy" spells. As far as I can tell, the entire purpose of this system is to make it so that player mages are way better than Bjalla here because elevated-energy spells are bolstered by both your supernatural score AND by being smart enough to dump your class skills into the right skills. They also run on separate cooldowns which can be reduced by taking the wizard-only skill, meaning that clerics get shafted again and are still useless.



Siracca as a cleric knows all the spells on her list because this is an inbred descendent of D&D, and we need to talk about the spell classes now. We have Natural (poison, healing, etc), Spiritual (holy light and pacification), Unnatural (spooky necromancy shit), Summoning (duh), Ritual (plot spells you can't cast), and... Oriental (sigh). The Oriental spells are supposed to be from the Rillow's djinni not-god who created his own spell school for shit like teleportation, levitation, a bunch of vaguely themed deserty spells... and this spell that summons the red spell of Japan to power up some dude with Banzai energy or whatever stupid shit. It's a grab bag of shit vaguely related to being Asian IRL, with the weird lore thing that all the other spell schools were created by actual gods and the oriental school was created by a djinni... who seems more adept at it than many of the actual gods. I don't know, and quite frankly I don't care.



An added "bonus" of the combat system is that your fragile mages will immediately run into melee combat with their staves after casting anything, requiring constant micro to pull the idiots away from the enemy fangs. Unlike Baldur's Gate, I cannot find a way to turn this off.



The undead are near the destroyed wagons in the battle outside the cap - wait a minute! If the Deron-Guld forces made it all the way to the capital, why is no one worried about this?



Apparently it's... a plague ghoul? Is that the plague in Deron-Guld? Why is no one worried about this?



We get this off an undead guy.



We slaughter more plagued undead.



I then fuck up and misclick ordering the entire party to murderize Siracca. Reload.



Inta gains a level and maxes her Large Blades skill at... level 4. Hooray!



I then realize that with my planned build of "complete immunity to physical damage" there's literally no downside to berserking so whenever I remember to use this it'll be great.



Not pictured: him yelling at me because I missed a group.

: I have slain every undead plaguing the Merchant's Road.



What the fuck?

Again, we get another tedious greed choice after another tedious quest.

: Thank you, Brother Wembly.

He never gave the party his name - fuck it.

: I bless you in holy Alnarius's[sic] name.

: Oh, may I take a look at that amulet you're carrying?

That's right, it's a quest CHAIN! (of boring).

: Hmm... I remember seeing it worn by a member of the previous groups who took up arms against the undead. He had a brother serving with the Brightguard, I believe. I advise visiting their headquarters, inform them of the sad news.




We go to the Brightguard headquarters to return the amulet.



Is this supposed to be funny or something?



: I found this necklace, one of the squires said it might be yours.

Jailor: Ah, one of the squires, eh? I'm surprised they know anything other than whining and self-promotion. Show me what necklace you're talking about.

Jailor: What? It's impossible... is it possible?

Jailor: As the undead became more common on the trade routes, the high priests of the temple put increasing pressure on the Brightguards to clear the area. They deployed everyone they could due to manpower shortages, even taking my dear brother Bryson as a scout months ago, which is why I'm on watch here alone. I haven't heard from him since.



What the fuck happened to the editors? Who is "God"? This setting runs off OC do not steal deities like Alnarius and Rothgor. "take this little gold piece" - he's offering 100 gold.

Fuck it.

: Thank you very much. I was happy to help.

So the game basically told us that the Deron-Guld guys got the zombie plague right to the doors of the capital and it infected the capital's soldiers, and... nothing. It's not spreading or anything.

The game doesn't tell me what the medallion does and I frankly don't care.

Jailor: I wish you all the very best. Goodbye.




So, are you ready for the dumbest part of the greed system? Accepting contractually obligated quest rewards gets you greed. However, note above that we are breaking into this store under cover of darkness despite being 2 nobles who really don't need the money.



We unlock the chest and I fuck up by not giving these to Inta and giving them to Hamlin instead. I missed that they gave +10 to all physical resistances. We'll put them on Inta next update.

Anyway, guess how that affected the Greed meter. Go on, guess.

IT DIDN'T! So accepting contractually agreed legitimate payment is greedy, but breaking into a store to steal expensive magical gloves is A-OK! What a great system!



This lady has a fetch quest to go get her some plants because she's getting run out of business from fantasy wal-mart. I'm snipping this.



This guy needs an item we can't get until Chapter 3, with the catch we can give it to a witch instead for more GREED but more cash.



We're gonna do this guy's sidequest to make a point.

: Whose life are we talking about?

: This is all that damnable Baflodac's fault - may Rothgor tear him into strips! That Greybark villain's goons abducted my dear friend Magnhild. They're holding her hostage, and I'm sure it will get much worse.

: What do you need done?

: I need someone to rescue my dear Magnhild. Baflodac's gang is a menace to all Isilbright. Someone needs to slap them down, hard - hard enough they'll never get up.



We take a look at his stock.



This goes to Hamlin, who disproves the "exceptional strength" nonsense but can now contribute in fights for real.



This goes right on Inta because again, our goal is to get 100% physical resistance because fuck this game.



I then go looking for the thugs while forgetting I never took the quest.



We get the witch's quest, where I think she's supposed to be bad because people are scared of her, but for all we know she's using it to make turbo healing potions. This game is dumb and nothing makes sense.

She also sells Unnatural spells, so Bjalla learns life drain. We'll be back to teach Bjalla the fine art of shitting out skeletons.



She also sells a 1/day resurrection staff I should probably grind for.



: That sounds like real trouble, all right. I'll see what I can do.

: Thank you very much, Madam. It all happened in Greybark Square, just outside the southern end of the cemetery. I saw when they cornered her and immediately ran back here to safety - I mean, to get help.



We find the thugs struggling with their fear of cooties because they cornered a girl.



The thugs suffer a mysterious wolf accident and die.



Magnhild fucks off after this.



Inta gets a one-handed sword that works with the large blades skill, and I'll be honest - we're switching to that because shields also grant straight up physical resistance.



: Magnhild is safe now.



: Thank you Bellun. Good luck with your business.

My guy we just paid you hundreds of gold.

Of course, this is another GREED choice and by accepting the offered reward - which we never asked for, by the way - for risking our lives in combat the game thinks we were motivated by GREED and ramps up the curse.

: Thank you again. Take my advice and stay away from Baflodac. Never know what that crazy bugger might do. Or say.


So there you have it, almost all the sidequests in this game are tedious "go to area, kill everyone/fetch thing, turn down reward to avoid GREED" choice. We'll be skipping most of them - I want to do the character quests and one I remember that's unintentionally hilarious for all the wrong reasons.



The game is STILL throwing out tutorials, because they tacked on a convoluted "party level" system which is supposed to represent group tactics and familiarity - but you get a different set of benefits for constantly rotating out characters. As they don't gain XP when not in the party, it's absolutely not worth it.



On the plus side, with just the crap we found in the first real town - not counting the alchemists gloves Hamlin is currently using - we are really close to never caring about physical attacks again.

Next time: Hamlin fucks us over.