Part 33: The Only Guarantee of Morality
The Only Guarantee of Morality
You've filled in more of your internal map of Sucia Island. You can feel that your confrontation with Trajkov looms ever closer, but even with all the canisters you've used so far, even with all the supplies you've found, you are afraid.
You've done your best to deny supplies to the enemy and to disrupt and destroy their defenses. You've even met the outsiders in battle. You've pushed the northern front against the rogues almost all the way into the northern mountains, giving the serviles much-needed breathing room before they inevitably devour each other.
But even as you let these distractions drive you north, you know that all you're doing is delaying the inevitable. You failed to find Goettsch's bolt hole out west, and continuing further northeast puts you ever closer to Trajkov without any helpful allies in your corner.
The nearby obelisk reads, "SUCIA ARENA. WEST WING - REGISTRATION, TRADING, WAGERING. EAST WING - CREATIONS, CONFINEMENT."
You feel like you've swallowed a heavy stone and now it's stuck in your throat. Astrov didn't misunderstand what he saw here. Only your wishful thinking blinded you to the full truth.
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You step into an arena. You have never been in a Shaper arena before. Creation sport combat has been illegal for well over a century. Even if it were not infested with rogues, being here would be very unsettling.
Today, Shapers feel some moral responsibility to their creations. This was not always the case. Shapers made creations merely to fight each other for sport. They traded recipes and pitted their pets against each other in bloody combat.
Today, creations fight each other only in legitimate wars, or in illegal, underground fighting pits. Places like this exist only in the dark past.
A charged thahd rushes at you as you leave the ruin. Random Asshole obliterates it. Even an advanced thahd model is only a thahd.
Still, slaying creations here, at the heart of the old Shaper world's cruelty, leaves you uneasy.
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There is a cave entrance just northeast of the Arena. You recognize the massive creature standing in the entrance. It's a battle beta. They're terrifying creatures. You shudder at the realization that you might be about to fight it.
Then, silently, head bowed, it turns and walks back into its cave. Very strange.
This message and the previously quoted text both popped almost as soon as we walked north along the arena border. Both dialogue boxes appeared before a player would actually see what they're referencing. The triggers are wonky. This happens from time to time and can be disorienting if it's the first time you've played the game.
You follow the battle beta. The difference between it and a battle alpha is the same as the gulf between the alpha and a given thahd -- immense.
Battle alphas, betas, and gammas are why I previously posited these are a reference to Brave New World's classes. Clearly it's not a direct copy of that setting's system, though.
These humanoids were probably created the same way serviles were, based off of human stock that the dominant Shaper class wanted to enslave. That's just my guess -- the series doesn't talk about the origin of the battle alphabet creations.
You stand before a battle beta. It towers over you, an enormous and lethal killing machine. Battle betas are designed to lead the way into battle, to be the first creatures to crash into an enemy line.
Though it is clearly in peak physical condition, its face bears an expression of doubt and confusion. It leans against the wall, thinking. It is quite upset.
It looks up at you. It doesn't seem surprised to see a Shaper. "Oh. Shaper. Greetings. I Prav. I... I... What should I do?"
Your first thought is for your safety, but it's less than a second before you connect Prav with Freeplace. The battle alphas of Freeplace have given themselves a purpose -- to live together independent of the Shapers. Their colony struggles with the limitations Shapers placed on alphas, but nevertheless, those creations have persevered for untold years to fulfill their own chosen goals.
This battle beta, however, is alone and has nothing. "Where did you come from? Who created you?" you ask.
"I was frozen in mine. I was woken by mind. I was told slay all who come. But no Shapers. I have doubts. I look for Shapers to guide me. None. I come here and wait," Prav says. He must be one of the advanced creations that Erwin was given to defend the mines.
It's interesting that Prav distinguishes between invaders and Shapers while the other battle creations you encountered in the mines did not. "What sort of doubts did you have?" These doubts may save you from having to kill Prav.
"I am made to kill. I will kill. But who to kill? Not those wanted by Shapers. Kill those bad to Shapers. Who are bad? Who are good? I do not know. I want to kill. I do not want to kill." Prav's years of being frozen on this island seem to have damaged his brain. This level of introspection is very unusual for a battle creation. And undesirable as well.
If Prav notices how long it takes you to formulate your questions, he doesn't comment on it. For him, it may be normal. You're not sure that the battle beta has ever carried on a conversation with anyone besides perhaps mind Erwin. There are always the rogues, though.
"What is in this area?" you ask. It's a neutral enough question.
"Rogues. Many rogues. I fear them. They want to slay me, but I do not know if I must slay them. So I run here. I stay here."
Any right-thinking Shaper would recognize Prav himself as a rogue. Your time on Sucia Island has shown you that there are different levels of deviation, though. Prav may have failed his programming, but his confusion and reluctance are trivial acts of rebellion when compared to the broader chaos that is Sucia.
We can opt to fight Prav, but aside from his failings as a guard dog, does he really seem so terrible?
"I require your assistance. Come and help me," you say. If you can renew his purpose, maybe Prav's paralysis can end.
"I do not know, Shaper. I want to kill. I do not want to kill. I do not know if helping you is right thing. I will kill. I should not kill."
An irrational bubble of anger rises up in you as Prav sways back and forth, trapped between his doubts and his nature. "I assure you you will be fighting the enemies of the Shapers. Come and assist me."
"I... I..." It shakes its head. It seems to be afflicted with some strange sort of apathy. Even your command doesn't budge it. It looks more miserable than ever.
The bubble pops. "Enough moping, Battle Beta! Attention! Come with me!"
Your sharp command managed to overcome Prav's apathy. It lumbers forward. It's still miserable, but it will come with you. You hope that action will dispel some of its strange melancholy.
Prav works the same way as the other NPC allies we've fought with. Any kills he racks up will not contribute experience to our team. He's a good pile of HP, though, and this area has a load of rogues.
The arena still exudes malice. Maybe it's just because of the rogues crawling all over the place. Maybe it's because of the whips and shackles and decanters and goblets. Maybe it's because you think you can still see the shadows of ancient bloodstains here and there on the surviving tile, beneath the rubble and more recent remains.
You are thankful that creations don't leave ghosts behind.
The ancient Shapers decorated the arena in a manner befitting a place of refined entertainment.
You struggle to look upon this ruin and not conclude that the Shapers are the true enemy, and that theirs are the ghosts malevolently haunting this isle.
Your creations stand bleeding over the fallen rogues. They are only unlike each other in that you control some but not others. The Shapers hold that difference to be the only distinction that matters. It is the quality that decides which creations live and which die.
You stand by the Shaping platform and ask yourself a question. Do your people deserve the storm that will rise from this island?
The rogues throw themselves at you as you try to work this question out.
What does rogue even mean? Does the word mean anything to you now? Has the word ever meant anything besides not conforming to the Shapers' will? Are you a rogue? Are the Shapers rogue?
As you struggle with your own doubts, Prav mutters an endless, circular mantra. Want to kill. Don't want to kill. Want to kill... The cadence infects your thoughts.
Must obey. Must disobey.
The rogues just don't stop coming. Glaahks must nest in the arena's rotten heart. Not only must you contend with charged thahds and artilas, but also glaahks. If not for his doubting heart, you would have had to face a battle beta, too. The Shapers were not kind. They were not just. They were not thoughtful.
Their machinations still torment the creatures they abandoned.
And the only other marks they left behind on Sucia attest to limitless hubris.
Including the canisters. The wonderful, detestable canisters. Without them, none of this would have come to pass.
All you can do is make this place safe for the saner inhabitants, of whom there is only one -- poor, lost Prav.
These creations are too feral to understand speech and too mad to reach with compulsion.
Whether they're the descendants of the Shapers' creations or whether they were left by the outsiders is irrelevant. They're too dangerous to be left alone.
Does the same apply to your kind? Should someone not come and kick over your nests?
Should you be denied all comforts, driven to exhaustion, and put down as well?
The Shapers thought they'd return. They believed that whatever storm had come to rain on their parade here would blow over.
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These self-sealing vats are a very ingenious Shaper invention. They can make a creation and, at just the point when it becomes alive, seal it in a suspended state in one of these devices.
There it will stay, unconscious and frozen, until something causes the jar to open and awaken its inhabitant.
This jar is open, and it looks like it has been open for at least a few weeks. Some trap or automatic device must have caused it to disgorge its contents.
Two hundred years later, everything they left hibernating is awakening, senile and suffering.
Even the arena can't rot away in peace.
The holding pens are full of recently awakened creations. Their creators are long dead, and whatever imprints they might have left have decayed during two hundred years of sleep. The arena-born creations are hungry and alone.
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This is a control panel. Like all Shaper controls, it is a carefully shaped plant growing out of a sturdy tube of metal and stone. Seven wooden controls emerge from the branches. There were other controls, but they rotted off.
You touch one of the controls experimentally. It is rigid. The controls must not be receiving energy.
With the power spirals hooked up, you're able to flip the switches.
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The controls hum. You hear the sound of grinding stone in the distance.
This control panel unlocks basically all of the sealed automatic doors. Most of those doors lead into the holding pens whose creations Solution slew at range, but there are other surprises in store.
Someone was using the holding pens as storage for canisters. You suspect the outsiders were at work here -- they stowed canisters they wanted to save for later in the pens, then released the hibernating arena creations. It seems the outsiders didn't plan on ever feeding the creatures. They would have starved to death if they failed to break out of the pens.
The storage room is full of pods and other tools. The outsiders didn't bother breaking in, so you manage quite the haul. You feel filthy.
You return to the control panel and flip the rest of the switches...
The two nearest doors slide open.
The charged thahds die quickly, which is the only mercy you can afford for them.
This whole place is abhorrent to you, but you can't turn away.
The three Sholai here give you pause. Perhaps the Sholai didn't awaken the arena creations. The serviles almost certainly didn't -- they would have never made it through Erwin's mines. But there's another person out here. Goettsch might have done this as he fled Trajkov.
You've failed to find him so far, but unless he's completely cut off from information on what's happening, he'll probably seek you out eventually... if he isn't already.
The control panel unlocked this pen. The canister inside improves your command of vlish shaping.
The next canister fills you with a surge of well-being, but you can't put your finger on what exactly changed.
The creation in here shattered the canisters it was supposed to protect. With that, you've found the last of the secrets in the arena and destroyed the last of its rogues.
Prav looks at you hopelessly. "What do I do now, Shaper?"
You wish you could direct it to Freeplace, but you're sure that would come with a whole host of unexpected consequences. "You don't need to follow me anymore," you say instead.
"Yes, Shaper. I will return to my home." He looks more depressed. He's lost what little purpose in life he had.
You couldn't do anything for him but help make his awful home a little less frightening.
We found some nice stuff, including more multi-target spore bags, a rod of succor, and a lot of vendor trash. The most important thing we scored was the sharing belt.
Solution also leveled up. Her healing craft needs some healthier numbers if we're going to keep GreatEvilKing and the artila twins alive for much longer. Now that she's at skill rank 10 in Magic Shaping, it's time to spread the love out just a bit.
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You enter a broad, almost peaceful dell. The ground rolls very smoothly, giving you very little concealment. This is a pity, because you can see, in the distance, several patrols of Sholai warriors. It will be tricky to evade them.
The foliage in the area seems to be affected by some sort of pervasive illness. The grass is the wrong color, and leaves are withering.
Watching attentively for a few minutes, you start to notice that it looks like the patrols are mostly to the west and the north. They seem to be keeping away from the southeast.
Even if you aren't sure what the answer to the Shaper question is, you still know what you should be doing right now.
It's just that you really don't want to meet Trajkov.
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This is an old Shaper obelisk. It is still legible:
East —Arena, Mines
South — Kazg
West — South Workshop, Main Research
You duck behind a crumbling wall to the northeast. A stream of armed Sholai flow past. They don't notice you, but they will if you step out of cover. There are far too many of them, and you are reluctant to engage them if you don't have to. The stealthy Sholai of the west were easy to defeat because they didn't organize to fight you, but these Sholai might.
If you hadn't found your way north through the well-defended mines, the Sholai might have expected your arrival. As it is, you've managed to pop up in their midst without them knowing. If there's a way to use this to your advantage, you've decided you should find it.
You pass a poisonously orange pond. Since you left the mines, everything has been so green. You'd expected to find even more desolate wastes north of Kazg. Whatever is contaminating the land must come from someplace south of here, but you can't imagine what it might be other than the mines...
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There are several crumbling pylons in this corner of the dell. They are all extremely old. These are probably some of the remaining traces of whoever settled this island long before the Shapers came.
The air is chilly here and you feel like you are being watched. There are no tracks on the ground. You suspect that the outsiders don't come here. This area might be haunted.
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You inspect the pylon. It is centuries old. There are markings running up and down its length. Looking closely, the markings look like skeletons or very thin humanoid forms. This might be a grave marker.
You have an unusual burst of good luck. You notice something which looks like a panel at the base of the pylon. You pry it open and find a pouch.
The leather of the pouch crumbles at your touch. It's incredibly old. Inside, you find some smooth, featureless gold disks and an ivory ring.
Nothing comes out to attack you. You move on, glad that you could use this small gap in the Sholai's defenses against them.
The ivory band just isn't very good at this point. It might have been more helpful in the early game.
The Sholai didn't leave anyone to guard their campsite. At least, no one you can see. You hurry on by before they can come back.
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This broad plain is clearly diseased. The trees and grass were killed from the ground up, invisible poisons leaching up into them. There is a pervasive, acrid stink in the air. Your eyes start to water.
The crumbling roadway you are standing on has clear fresh tracks. Booted feet have been walking up and down this roadway. The outsiders must be patrolling this road.
You didn't expect to find such strong contamination this near the glen. The watershed must influence how fast the desertification spreads. It's counterintuitive, but you don't have any other explanations.
A prickle of cold fear runs up your spine as you watch a mass of Sholai sweep closer. You retreat from their territory before you can clue them into your presence.
You return to Freeplace. You never finished exploring the woods outside the alpha settlement, and it puts you nearer to where you think Goettsch may be. Perhaps you can also find another route north to where Trajkov is waiting.
The heart of the woods is naught but a snare of footpaths rotten with box mines and bone fragments.
Whenever you fail to disarm a red mine, out pops a raging battle alpha.
They don't get the chance to join their brethren. Sweeping the woods for mines didn't lead to any more answers, but at least this place will be safe for all the, well, civil beings nearby.
Disarming some mines here will let us pass this area freely from now on.
North of Freeplace is the Power Station. We're not going there yet, for reasons which will be made clear in a future update.
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This pylon is carved with many intricate inscriptions and drawings. You think the designs are sketches of the figures buried here when they were alive, and of the funerals of the deceased.
Fascinating stuff for anthropologists, but not you.
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Whoever the people were who lived here before the Shapers came, you are starting to develop some respect for them. This huge vault is an impressive piece of architecture, all the more so for being so old.
The walls are covered with inscriptions. Even if you understood the writing, the entries are too old and worn to be legible. Still, the length of the listings indicates a long history and complicated language.
However, as interested as you are by the ancient history here, contemporary additions seem much more relevant to your efforts. Someone has recently placed numerous mines here. There are also a host of turrets and detection crystals.
These shapings are not sloppy. They are carefully and elegantly made, clearly the result of recent work by a highly skilled Shaper. This can't be the work of one of the outsiders.
The sensors on the mines are not currently moving. They aren't currently primed to explode. That could change in a moment, though.
You must be getting closer to Goettsch. If you can pass these traps, you'll be one step closer to getting some direction. Perhaps he can answer your doubts.
You send titty baby forward. The mines don't respond to the fyora. Your recent adventures with the crystal type mines dissuade you from getting up close and personal with them. If your creations can pass them safely, then any other hostile defenses, including the turrets, can be destroyed first, before you try to deal with the mines.
The turrets don't even turn towards your creations as they get into position. It's easy enough to destroy the first one.
The other turrets don't respond to the destruction of one of their own.
The vlish cautiously herd the team through the main chamber. Broken sarcophagi and huge pillars don't distract the creations from their goal.
Eventually, the team disappears from your sight.
One by one, Random Asshole leads the others through the destruction of the reaper turrets.
The reaper turrets don't respond to their piecemeal dismantling even when they're dying right next to each other.
The wastes ghosts concern TooMuchAbs more than the turrets did. Turrets are stupid, inferior creations.
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This is a general sort of crypt, where the bones of the less impressive dead were stacked over many years. There are long lists of names on the walls, the sole records of the countless souls interred here.
An icy breeze strikes you as you stand at the entrance. There is a hostile presence ahead. You can feel it.
There is also a strong breeze flowing through these tunnels. It picks up a lot of dust. It's not easy to see.
Ghosts have something to protect. TooMuchAbs has learned more than it wished to know about ghosts from its proximity to the fyora and the artilas. Ghosts are more cunning than turrets. Ghosts killed the First Vlish.
Ghosts must be destroyed.
They are fragile. Random Asshole and TooMuchAbs terrorize those which aren't destroyed outright.
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You see a restless ghost in the corridor ahead, standing at attention. It seems to be standing watch over something. It doesn't seem to notice you. For the moment.
GreatEvilKing whines. It sustained several wounds in the crypts and is reluctant to face more ghosts now. Random Asshole and TooMuchAbs do not have orders to return to the Shaper, though, and proceed to attack the waiting ghost.
The first waiting ghost charges after the team does significant damage to it. It strikes Random Asshole with energy that leaves it slack and numb. Another ghost materializes beside it. Random Asshole is unable to rally its willpower; instead, it falls. TooMuchAbs is left alone to lead the other creations.
The artilas react badly to ghost energies, but unlike Random Asshole, they survive. First Vlish and Second Vlish died to ghosts. Ghosts must be destroyed.
You can tell that things are going wrong. Your connection to Random Asshole snaps, and your tethers to the artilas are growing weaker. You call them back.
TooMuchAbs feels a tug to return, but it has not yet fulfilled its first duty, which is to eliminate threads in the crypt. It cannot decide whether to stay or return. It bobs in the air, weighing the two priorities.
The fyoras whine.
The fyoras keep whining as TooMuchAbs prioritizes its first directive, which is to secure the path for the Shaper. The First Vlish and the Second Vlish died to ghosts. Ghosts are a threat to the Shaper. Ghosts must be destroyed.
The ghosts have vanished.
But there are turrets. Turrets are stupid and simple. The turrets will be destroyed before TooMuchAbs obeys the weak tug to return to the Shaper.
The tug comes again, sharper.
The turrets will be destroyed after TooMuchAbs returns to the Shaper.
The turret targets the creations as they return. The turrets have become aware. They were not aware when the vlish first killed them, but now they are aware, and they wait to kill vlish. TooMuchAbs strikes first. Placid saviour, though weak, follows up with acid. RickVoid compounds the acid.
Titty baby is weak. Titty baby flees.
These attacks are not sufficient to destroy the turret without Second Vlish.
It is not weak titty baby that dies to the stupid turret. The stupid turret kills GreatEvilKing, eldest fyora.
TooMuchAbs kills the fyora-killer. It is too late without Second Vlish. Random Asshole would have completed the attack before the stupid turret became the fyora-killer.
The Shaper heals all wounds, but the Shaper does not heal death. The Shaper makes the Fourth Vlish and the Fifth Vlish.
Talow and Geokinesis are strong. They will kill the ghosts. They will not create fyora-killer turrets.
More turrets die.
No turrets become fyora-killers again. But the eldest fyora is gone. The Shaper is disappointed.
The Shaper must not be disappointed.
The Shaper does not join them at the end of the ancient crypts. The Shaper makes the creations rejoin her instead.
"The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality," from The Basis of Morality by Arthur Schopenhauer.
Next time: Paying Tuition
The traps in the ancient crypt are much too difficult for Solution to disarm right now. Likewise, she can't survive triggering them and detonating the mines. That means we need to find another way around.
Next time, we'll also get the bonus ghost jacuzzi death!