Part 36: Where Death Awaits
A mini-update for the thread. I was pretty tired this weekend, sorry about that.Where Death Awaits
To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere," from the complete essays of Michel de Montaigne.
You sneak past the Sholai patrols again. Once you reach safer ground, you Shape a new creation. The toughness of the rogue glaahks you've fought is impressive, and you hope that quality will help fill the void in your team. Maugrim snaps its whip-like tail once and settles in at the head of your formation.
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This valley is the most dead, diseased, unpleasant area you have seen anywhere on Sucia Island. There is nothing alive here. Nothing.
The ground is covered with a fine dust which is stirred up by the slightest breeze. It makes your eyes water and your skin burn. Even a little time here fills you with nausea. You can walk, but only with difficulty.
It is almost completely silent. Almost, but not quite. Sometimes, you think you hear a low, angry moan. You look around, but you can't see where the noise comes from.
Merely being in this area will occasionally stack the poison status on your characters. The smart but slow way to explore this area is to immediately enter combat mode. It's painfully slow going, though, and ultimately a frustrating experience if you're playing a deadweight Shaper build. Inattention to status effects will kill a Solution-alike very quickly.
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The obelisk is old and worn, but you barely manage to understand it. It says:
SOUTH WORKSHOP
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You step inside the workshop. Facilities like these are usually made to serve as support for research. They make and repair the complex devices the Shapers use to build new, exciting creations.
There is something wrong here. The foul, sickening atmosphere, which was strong outside, is almost paralyzing in here. Poisonous motes of dust hang in the air, waiting for you to inhale them.
Workshops are normally safe, inoffensive places. What has happened here?
You pull the collar of your tunic up over your nose and mouth. A little water and essence combined drench the fabric with weak acetic acid. The scent triggers memories of the spawners and you're not sure if the acid will do more than theoretically help against the eye-watering fumes.
Maugrim ventures past the cistern and into a central chamber where corroded casks have been stacked up in the corners and scattered across the walkways.
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Now you know why this area (and probably all of the areas around here) are so barren and diseased. You step back involuntarily, overwhelmed by the horror of it.
Shaper experiments tend to involve the production of a lot of poisonous and noxious substances, some of them alive. These foul byproducts are generally burned away using magic. To do otherwise would be horribly dangerous.
When Sucia Island was abandoned, however, there must have been a lot of experiments in place. In their rush to leave, the Shapers did not dispose of the experiments properly. They just put them in metal drums and dumped them here.
Some of the canisters have been leaking.
This is not a workshop anymore. It's a pit of poison, which has been leaking out and sinking into the ground. Who knows how many creations and serviles have died because of it?
A workshop like this must still contain items of value. But dare you expose yourself to the risk of entering this poisonous place?
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There is a small control panel at the back of this office. You play with the wooden controls for a little bit, they are dead. One crystal is set into the fungal panel, but it is dark. The panel isn't being powered.
The controls were labeled, but the labels have mostly worn away. Only one remains. The second switch has a label which reads "Targeting all."
You try to get the panel working.
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You have no luck. The panel is completely dead. Its power supply, if there is one, must be somewhere else. Probably somewhere close.
While your creations line up past the cistern, you investigate another side room. This one turns out to have what you're looking for -- a power source. With the tools on the nearby workbench, you examine the crystal spiral.
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It is active, but it has come unhooked from the crystal fibers it is supposed to be powering. Use the spiral again to attempt to hook it up.
Turning on the power is easy enough. The noxious gases haven't affected the fibers or adapter.
Back in the office, you contemplate the control panel. The second option, "targeting all," seems like a bad idea. You flip the third switch experimentally. The crystal on the panel is now green.
Green is good, green is go. The defenses here are either inactive now or completely shut down if the old Shapers followed the standard from the Sucia Mines.
Your creations lead the way northwest. You find another power spiral and plug it in.
Nearby, Talow bobs a little too close to one of the bubbling green pools. The faded red tile must describe the safety boundary. A single step past the solid red is too dangerous to contemplate.
Your creations form a vanguard to explore the rooms ahead. This place is simply too befouled to remain in for long. An aggressive and swift sweep of the premises is a safer bet at this point than the usual defensive cluster.
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There is a defense pylon in the center of this room. It doesn't look like it was originally a part of the chamber. It was probably added to protect the workshop from invaders in the Shapers' absence.
Crystal fibers run from the base of the pylon into the ground. The pylon must draw its power from a source somewhere else. The source probably isn't too far away.
You've already hooked up two of the power spirals. These pylons aren't firing searing orbs at you or your creations, so they're probably safe enough.
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There is a burst of foul, icy wind, and spectral shapes appear before you.
The appearance of the spectral Agents shocks you, but they don't prove more resilient than the other ghostly foes you've dealt with so far. A pylon blasts one of the nearest ghosts with raw magical energy. You think you see an expression of surprise on its face before it fades away into ectoplasmic wisps.
Nor do the Guardian specters. You have to wonder what has bound the spirits of these warriors here, though. The Shapers don't usually dabble in necromancy, but you don't think a dozen Agents and Guardians spontaneously decided to haunt this place.
Someone haphazardly littered this Shaping room with box mines. Geokinesis's presence doesn't trigger them, so it scouts further.
Several power spirals lay shattered and useless in the corner. The braziers here have long ago burned out, so the room is illuminated mainly by the gentle pulse of the mines and the phosphorous glow of uncontrolled alchemical reactions.
As you disarm the box mines, Geokinesis continues. South is another chamber with open pools of boiling, rancid essence, surrounded by compromised barrels.
You approach the final cluster of mines. These are packed so tightly together that you fear you can't disarm them in time. And you can't. As you disable the first, the others are triggered by your presence. There is no time to back away -- almost as soon as you hear the deadly cluster of clicks, they explode. These aren't creation mines, either, but the ordinary, deadly combustion type. They shred your hands and face with fire and fragments of glass and tile. Even your creations don't escape the chain explosion unscathed.
The Shaper robe is worth it. Solution will usually don this before making new creations from here on, though she'll swap it for proper armor the rest of the time.
You patch up the worst of the wounds, but the foul air in here impedes your healing craft.
Meanwhile, TooMuchAbs discovers another pylon-defended chamber. Another trio of ghosts rises from the floor in response to the creature's proximity. At least, you think that's what triggers the ghosts' arrival -- you can't be sure.
The pylon doesn't respond, so it must not be receiving power. You bypass the acid pools by racing through a nearby workroom and press yourself against an automatic door that responds just a hair too late to avoid a smear of your vital juices.
Instead of the power spiral you expected, there's a servant mind locked away in here. Unfortunately, if this room was ever sealed off from the bad air before, it definitely isn't now.
The following can go one of two ways...
This servant mind is still, amazingly, alive. However, it is not well. Years of exposure to the poisons here have left it perpetually ill and quite mad.
The moment it sees you, it shrieks. "You! A Shaper! Servant of Corata! You will pay! I will kill you! Die!"
"I will not be threatened by you, servant," you reply. Your scowl breaks open some of the mine-inflicted lacerations on your face.
"With my last strength! With my last strength, I fight you!" It closes its eyes and begins to do something. Its body shivers with the effort.
The mad servant mind summons an agent and a guardian specter, you kill them, and the mind just becomes unresponsive. It's not an NPC but rather an object, so you can't enter combat against it.
But if, instead, Solution thinks fast and uses her stupidly high leadership score...
"You have made a mistake," you say. "I am here to kill Corata." You would've thought Corata dead well over a century ago, but maybe you can get through to the servant mind this way.
Your authoritative tone manages to out through the creature's madness. It stops. "I... You... You have stopped me. Now, Shaper, you will torment me again. My foolishness. Now you will hurt poor Mind Ramel."
"Who is Corata?" you ask.
Ramel doesn't notice the incongruity between "I'm here to kill Corata" and "who is Corata?" Instead, it says, "Shade. Specter. Ghost of foul Shaper who came here to raid. He is dead, and he torments me. He wants a body, a return to life, and I cannot give it, so he torments me, he lashes out at me. Oh, the pain. Oh, how I would give all the rest of my strength to reward any who could kill Corata. Kill, kill."
"Where is Corata?" You can't imagine that the insane mind is right about the identity of its tormentor, but if someone else is here, they either need to be rescued or put out of their misery.
"In the main storage complex. At the southwest corner."
The blood on your brow is mingling with the gases in the air and burning your skin. You wipe it away. "Any advice on how I might kill Corata?"
"Pylons. Pylons there. He ignores them. He has foolish times. He does not realize two power spirals needed to power pylons. Four rooms off Corata chamber. Storage rooms. Power spirals are in northwest and southeast corner rooms," Ramel manages.
"How long have you been here?"
"So long. Awake so long. Trying to control the poison, trying to fix the leaks, but Corata doesn't let me. Foul shade Corata torments me. Corata wants the killing poison to leak away, so one can come in to help him. But nobody comes. Nobody help me. Nobody helps poor me."
Well, you're here now. "What treasures are stored here?" you ask. If someone has broken into such an awful place, they must have had some powerful incentive. You're already regretting coming this far. You should've left after picking up the Shaper robe.
"Shapers take much, but not all. Artifacts of value are here. And the control key. The research hall control key! Is hidden here! Oh, wait. Told not to say that. I am sorry," Ramel says. It watches you quietly. It is still mad, but in a quieter way.
"That is all for now."
"Good, good. You not hurt me yet. But you will be back. Back to hurt. All Ramel gets is hurt. Poor Ramel," it whimpers as you walk away.
If the trouble is in the southwest, you'll need to approach it carefully. You send your creations eastward in the search for more power spirals.
Of course, there are also more ghosts along the way.