Part 14: Service, Sacrifice, and Saviours

Service, Sacrifice, and Saviours




The rogues may not be that interested in fighting you, but you are interested in fighting them. The sulfurous air here has a bitter undertone that you can't quite place. It's not the smell of spawners. It must be something the Shapers left behind.

You follow the algae-slick cliff east towards a foul, purplish pond. Beyond it you see rogues moving, but...


Perhaps it's not the canisters. Perhaps it's whatever pollutants were left behind to slowly poison this marsh. Upon reflection, it's not that important.

What is important is how clumsily shaped your creations are. Love and revulsion struggle within you. These creations -- new-made PurpleXVI and ManxomeBromide, loyal GreatEvilKing and idhrendur, potent placid saviour -- are part of you, reflections of not just your power, but also your skill. And they show with every motion how wanting your skills were when you made them.



You could do so much better. The thought plagues you as you direct the destruction of the roamers here. Even with vlish directing them, they're nothing special. You can see the same flaws in them that you see in PurpleXVI, though your creation is admittedly better -- not simply because it's yours, but because you have grounding in Shaper theory that neither outsiders nor spawners can ever achieve.









The rogues hurl themselves at you, at the spit and fangs of your creations, proving that your skill is yet superior to the outsiders'. But isn't that to be expected? You are a Shaper, true and rightful possessor of the knowledge and power of creation. Being better than thieving, conniving outsiders is not enough. Not nearly enough.







The outsiders are mere flesh and bone. Shapers are forever.

Yes, individual Shapers live and die, but the art itself is eternal, and only your people, through centuries of discipline and dedication, are able to make the best use of it. Shaping in the hands of outsiders will only lead to this -- rogues unleashed on serviles and, inevitably, on people, unleashing destruction wherever they go. And these rogues are only the most obvious manifestations of such madness. It could be so much worse. Infestations, plagues, mass famine...



You finally finish purging the boldest rogue patrols and head further east. You have a great deal to consider. Your creations...







Even such weighty thoughts must be pushed aside when the present intrudes. A roamer manages to penetrate your front line. You burn it alive with a blast from your fiery wand as your creations finish off the rest of the rogues.



Despite their superior numbers, the feral creations have only managed to superficially wound your team. Your healing craft is sufficient to take care of them... for now.



This place used to have a road, but the paving stones that haven't been buried by peat are slowly dissolving instead. Your shoes are in increasingly poor shape; the whitish residue creeping up the suede and the tingling, slight burn where moisture seeps through the stitching clues you in that the marsh is strongly alkaline. The place is certainly contaminated.



An obelisk only half-sunken into the mud reads, "East - Kazg. West - Pentil. North - " but that last bit is scratched out and unreadable. The rogue wastes are north, and hidden in them are the outsiders, the Sholai.



The marshes sprawl further north. The rogues seem unending, which is satisfying rather than frustrating -- destroying them now grants you a measure of distance, a pleasant, almost dissociative sensation, where you can examine your thoughts and rationally consider the benefits of absorbing your early creations in favor of shaping stronger, better versions... But your eldest creations have experience, are developing a sense of individuality, and they're infinitely eager to please you. The question is a difficult one.



So you slay some rogues. Whoever created them didn't care about their well-being, or the poor, vicious things wouldn't have been left in such an awful environment, with little opportunity to hunt. These roamers have been reduced to eating the yellowed grasses here. You can count the roamers' ribs. PurpleXVI is healthy and well-muscled, with a smooth and shining pelt. These creatures are dull-eyed and mangy in comparison.







Drawn by the scent of blood, the rogues keep coming. Of course they want meat. They'll fling themselves at you until they're all dead. Even when gravely wounded, these creatures don't flee. They're desperate.



You put them out of their misery.




The canister must have been trapped by the Shapers who left this place. That's what you tell yourself as you approach it and extend your hand.




Wishful thinking is lethal for Shapers, especially apprentices like you. You swiftly cure yourself -- it takes two castings before the potent toxins are broken down into less harmful compounds that your body can manage by itself. Your palm remains painfully swollen, with a nastily puckered wound where the canister almost injected all its contents into you.



To make matters worse, a roamer sniffs you out back here. Your brave artilas clear the way, leaving smoking corpses behind that will swiftly be absorbed by the peat.



You track down the submission vlish that commands the ambushers and ManxomeBromide tears it apart.



The marsh isn't home only to miasmas and rogues, though. Far to the northwest, you find evidence of civilization. A mostly intact fence surrounds a large vegetable garden. The greens are pathetic and malformed, and you doubt that they're truly safe to eat, but they're growing all the same. The little building here looks likely to disappear into the muck at any time, but it's someone's little fiefdom...

The sign here reads, "Home of Clois the Sage. All who come in peace are welcomed."

Well, feral rogues excepted, you're quite peaceful.



You meet an old servile. Very old. It looks like she has easily outlived the maximum lifespan designed into their kind by the Shapers. She moves slowly and carefully, but it doesn't look like she has any intention to die any time soon.

She shuffles up close to you and bends close. Her eyesight must be almost gone. She sniffs the air. She nods. Then she says, "Yes. Yes. You are here. I am Clois. Speak with me awhile."

"What are you doing out here, servile?" you ask. She's established quite the homestead here.

Her white eyes suddenly flash red for a moment. Very strange. "My name is Clois. I call myself a sage. That is the title I claim, though I really know little. I listen. The serviles of this island, all of them, with all of their petty and pointless squabbles and factions, they all come to me to speak, for guidance, for perspective. And I hope you have come to me for the same reason."

"Do you know anything about the history of this island?" Clois, you think, is more than she appears. She may be able to help you more than the other so-called "learned" serviles. You didn't miss that suppressed power of hers, though you don't know what it means.

"Even I was not alive when you Shapers left us here. I know you created powerful things here, and then fled from your own creations. I concern myself more with those who live here now. I care for the living, not the dead. I know, however, some secrets they learned. And I know that the canisters, the containers which are changing and remaking you, are a part of history which affects us still," Clois says.

"Do you know anything about these secrets?" You keep your expression carefully composed, but you're excited. The sensation pierces the haze you've felt since the strange attack you had upon entering this reeking swamp.

"I know that the Shapers have rejected them. I know that they found that all life is a scroll. The secrets of all life are written, on the tiniest of scrolls, and copied a multitude of times within you. The Shapers here used magic to look deep within a living being I and see these scrolls, and they learned how to rewrite them. And they learned that this power brought great danger to them.

"Thus, they fled." Clois finishes with a flourish of her small hands, as if to show the Shapers fleeing in a sudden burst. From what you've seen, that's not far from the truth.

"Tiny scrolls? That is a very strange thing to say," you manage. The idea of all life's secrets written within you is both laughable and discomfiting.

"That is my interpretation, of course. The Shapers had a different name for them. They called them 'Genes.'"

Hence the Geneforge, you realize. "What do you know about the canisters?" You almost immediately regret the question.

"The canisters contain the ability to rewrite the scrolls within you, remaking you, on the tiniest scale, a million, million times. They change you, in the way the canister chooses. You are gaining power from them. Any full human can. But beware. Who knows where the changes they wreak within you will stop?"

You shake your head. The canisters were made through the wisdom and hard work of the Shapers. The changes they've made to you have only made you better able to serve your people's interests in this harsh land. "Do you know where I can find a boat?" you ask, hoping to steer talk away from the canisters for a change.

She chuckles. "You are standing on top of a volcano, about to erupt, and you look for butterflies. I have heard that there is a boat at the eastern edge of the island. But it is not important. You should put it from your mind." Clois sounds alarmingly like a master Shaper.

"You seem very confident, for a servile." You manage to not sound too sour.

"Perhaps I am. I have spent my life learning, reading, seeing all I could. Once I was an Obeyer, and worshipped your kind. In time, looking at your works, I think I came to know you. Would you like to know what I learned?"

You nod slightly. When you first encountered a servile who wanted to teach you, you condescended to hear their lesson... Now, though, you know that at least some of these creations have thoughts and words of merit.

"I learned that you are humans. And, though your kind claims that you created us serviles from nothing, I believe that we are humans, too. We were modified once, many years ago, to serve you, but that, inside, we are the same," Clois says. It's complete madness, yet -- yet! -- you can't deny it.

"And what conclusion do you draw from that?"

"I believe that, inside, we are the same. I believe that the mind in my skull is the same as yours. I believe that my intelligence can match yours. I believe that we should not serve you." Clois has given voice to a thought that should have never been spoken. No human would be able to get away with these words. A Shaper would destroy her for such rogue thoughts. Your people are her creators. It's her destiny to serve. Yet.

"That's a very strange theory," you say. The understatement doesn't even begin to describe Clois's idea. "However, after what I've seen and learned, it does make a small amount of sense." At the very least, serviles are capable of greater intelligence and independence than your people believe. You've seen what they can do at their best... and, when you think back to the bandits, at their worst.

She smiles. "You now see the world through a different lens. I hope you follow the path of wisdom in the future." Clois looks vaguely in your direction with her milky eyes. Her skin is papery, and is starting to crack. You start to wonder how painful life must be for a servile who lives this long.

"I'd like to talk about what's happening on this island."

"I am nearly blind, and I can't travel. But I know that something is happening. I can't gather facts, but I can help you understand them. If you learn something interesting, come and tell me. If can, I will help you make sense of what you have seen." And then she can trade with the information you bring her... Well, given how quickly gossip passes between the sects, you suppose it doesn't matter.

"I've heard that there is someone powerful and dangerous on this island. His name is Trajkov."

"I have heard that name before. Outsiders have traveled through my marsh. I have heard the name from them. And I believe that he is one of them, and from far away, perhaps even over the sea. Learn more of him. I feel he is important."

"There's some sort of powerful Shaper secret on this island. It's called something like 'Geneforge.' That sounds like it's related to your tiny scrolls, doesn't it?"

"Indeed. This is only a name, but sometimes, before we can understand something, we must put a name to it. Learn more, as soon as you can."

Study, study, study. Well, in this case, it's more like seek, destroy, and interrogate, which is much more interesting, if also commensurately more dangerous, than reading the same dry tomes and doing the same boring dissections over and over again.

"Where do you think I should begin my search?" you ask.

"There are two places you can go. Both know of the outsiders. Who they are, what they want. One is Kazg. Find the leader of the Takers. Speak with her. The other is east of Kazg. There are outsiders there, but they are held besieged by Kazg. If you reach and speak with them, you might learn," Clois says. For her, learning must be the pinnacle of the virtues. She's come a long way for someone who must be self-taught.

"What do you think of the Awakened, and the Obeyers, and the other factions?"

"Very little. They all have answers and they all have errors. But each sees the truth in its own way. As, I'm sure, do you." She smiles again. "And you also have tasks to complete, yes? You are a Shaper with many goals. You seem to have a strong sense of your duty here. Let wisdom guide you."

"Farewell, Clois." You leave her standing in her garden, watching with her filmy eyes. You wonder what her world looks like.









There are still many rogues out in the marsh. It's amazing that Clois hasn't been eaten. You diligently hunt them down -- it's not much work, as they're drawn to you by their hunger. The slavering roamers fall quickly enough, and the vlish are not much stronger.




Perhaps these were the outsiders that split away from Trajkov. These rogues aren't that threatening to you, but as you grow stronger, so too must the outsiders. They seem to be a step ahead of you at each turn. They've had time to set up traps, outposts, alliances, and even, somewhere out there, a base.

But not all of the outsiders are united. Some of them may be reasonable -- maybe they realize that, as trespassers, they have no right to loot Shaper secrets. Maybe you can make your own alliance, not with creations, but with humans.

Now you know of five factions on the island, not including yourself. There are the three servile sects, of course, but also Trajkov's Sholai and the rebel Sholai. It seems inevitable that all of you will collide somehow, and soon... Whatever is shaped by this combination will have a profound impact on your people.

But first you must survive to meet the Takers, Trajkov, and the rebels.

And that means becoming stronger.


Next time: Less than Legendary Journeys

It's time to cast ballots again!

We've reached the end of my latest batch of screenshots. I've waited until the LP caught up to play further in order to let the thread catch up and make an important decision.

Do we absorb our creations and create newer, stronger creations? Or do we maintain our current creations and only replace them as necessary? Either option will have consequences on our future decisions and playstyle.

Please bold your vote!