Part 58: The Elder Updates LVII - Spooky Story Skeletons

Spooky Story Skeletons


At the end of the last update, we got our first dead drop mission involving a fearsome necromancer who is surely too powerful for us to confront directly.


Hoping to avoid any pain-in-the-ass encounters, I opt to do some story stuff instead.




Yeah, fat chance.


We also encounter our first lich! This is a Nether Lich, which for some reason is the name given to the weakest kind of lich. Like all of his kind, he is a floating wizardy shitlord and behaves as such by blasting the fuck out of you.



On the bright side, they invariably drop staves so they're generally worth the trouble.


Generally.


Thank you game




Hmm. Somehow khajiit thought Sancre Tor would be moreHELLO


Die!


Khajiit is seeing a theme.
Y'know, it's not like I don't appreciate that they tried to make this place a little different with the flame sconces goin' on over there, but goddamn, what a missed opportunity.


Why not make them some kind of other color besides white for spooky-ass lighting? Like, uh...blue, or some kind of eerie...pale...


...green. Right, moving on then.


oh no a brazier, it's probably burning ghosts or some shit aaaaaaa.


Wait...this helmet...



Who are you?
I was Rielus, loyal Blade of Emperor Tiber Septim. I do not know how long I have been dead. It feels like an eternity.
About that. How did you die?
My three companions and I were sent here by the Emperor Tiber Septim to discover what evil had defiled the holy catacombs of Sancre Tor.


Okay, my eyes are starting to glaze over at all this lore. Let's just get the Cliff's Notes.



"don't worry I got this, I brooded"


Okay so, I just want to review this for y'all. There's bad curse shit blocking off the Shrine of Tiber Septim, which is where the armor we need to get is. Obviously that's bad.



We need to kill these Blade skeletons to free the Blade ghosts so they can lift the curse which hey guess what is pretty tedious, but sure.


You can see it right there. All that mist in the background? That's the curse.


And now it's gone. They could've done something cliched but reliable here like, I don't know, have the ghost buddies sacrifice all of their remaining power and disappear forever to dispel the curse.


Or maybe, Idunno, a puzzle or a fetch quest? That would've been nice. But no, the curse is gone because brooding.


Bethesda, I'm not going to claim that you've got the best writers in the world, but you DO have generic fantasy writers. If part of the plot of your game is that ghosts are going to brood a curse away, delete that part and write ANYTHING ELSE. NOT THIS.

Oblivion's Not That Bad Points: ((-27 + - + (3 * ))/) + SUMMON THE BRETHREN)^


See ya later, broodlords!


Anyway, it's not terribly far from Sancre Tor to Cloud Ruler Temple, so let's go turn in our thing.


I have it right here.
The Septim blood may flow through my veins, but you have the soul of a hero. The Armor of Tiber Septim himself! Jauffre will be amazed to see it.
Who wouldn't?
You can reassure Jauffre that I will not destroy the armor. All I need is a scraping of Talos's divine blood.


Yes. Hilarious. What else can khajiit do?
While you were gone, I've made some progress in deciphering the Mysterium Xarxes ritual.
But you just said-
The third item we need is a Great Welkynd Stone.


They have been plundered one by one over the years, due to their great value to mages and occultists.
Then...we need a great Ayleid ruin?
There is only one place that is rumored to still contain one: the ruins of the Ayleid city of Miscarcand.
Miscarcand?
A place where many have perished seeking its Great Stone. But nothing else will do, so you must succeed where all others have failed.


Tell me more about Miscarcand.
The capital of one of the ancient Ayleid kingdoms which flourished in Cyrodiil before the rise of Men. It is said that the ruins are still haunted by the vengeful spirit of its last king. True or not, it is not a place to enter lightly. Be careful.
Got it.



Thankfully we've passed by Miscarcand before, so we can just travel on up to it.


Oh boy a sprawling plot Ayleid ruin. Allow me to capture the excitement of this place.




That's about the size of it. Of note but not pictured is a certain disease, but I'll go into that later.


Of course, the boss of the place is the King of Miscarcand, who happens to be a unique lich. He'll come running floating at you as soon as you grab the Great Welkynd Stone.


He's nothing to sneeze at, and you're liable to lose a chunk of health in the fight! Now, note my health and magicka. The disease I got earlier? For one thing, I caught a disease. Second? It's Astral Vapors. It cuts off your magicka regen and makes you weak to magic, and it ignores disease resistance entirely because the developers really, really wanted to give you a horrible disease that puts you at a disadvantage.


As you can imagine, this means lots and lots of reloading. On the other hand, the dungeon is chock full of magicka-restoring Welkynd Stones and you definitely have the means to deal with your affliction if you realize what's going on, so I can sort of see what they were going for. But still, there's the fact that the player might not even KNOW that Welkynd Stones replenish magicka, and might not realize what's going on until they're in the thick of battle and panic and don't even think to use their Welkynd Stones and ARGH.


But hey, dude dropped a kickass staff and I'm out of footage, so that's an update! Good night, everyone!