Part 42: Promises

Alright, Solution puns aside, it's time to sort of move along in the main quest. SORT OF.

Promises

"The promise given was a necessity of the past; the word broken is a necessity of the present," Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince.



You pass through the thick walls into this northeastern fortification to the low cries of wind. Not a single living creature greets you, nor do you hear any, not even birdsong.



A reaper turret lies in wait in the guardhouse. Your vlish slay it quickly enough, but you notice something more concerning.




Disarming the crystal mines slows your progress to a crawl, but you're able to disable all of them without tripping a single spore mine on the way.

The watchtower at the far end of the wall is guarded by a pair of reaper turrets, but they aren't swift enough to harm your creations. Soon, the turrets are nothing more than piles of ooze and purple thorns.







The placement of three reaper turrets almost back to back along this straight, tight passage presents a much greater threat than a couple turrets hidden in the corners of a small room. Dmar is struck by a massive thorn, but everyone else escapes harm, and the turrets quickly fall as soon as your creations come in range.



You discover an outsider corpse tucked away among the dead trees. Nobody's stripped this body, so as you straighten its limbs, you take the pair of enchanted boots the corpse still wears and murmur your thanks.



The other end of the gatehouse is also guarded by reaper turrets. You destroy them before they turn their nozzles on you.

You check the southern passage and find another crystal mine. Even a glance is enough to tell you that this mine is far outside of your ability, so you turn back towards the dust and bones outside.




The game does play the livestock sfx here...

Ornks? Something must be menacing them. You usher your creations towards the dead grove. An ornk rustles through the dessicated bushes. It lifts its head and its eyes flash with an eerie, malign intelligence.



Your vlish slay the ornk before it can pick up speed. It explodes a safe distance from you, but you're shaken. Ornks aren't known for a vicious temperament or for exploding on death. But the ones on Sucia Island are undeniably different from the other varieties you've seen -- these are well-armed with sharp, curved tusks. An ornk like these could give even a battle alpha trouble.







More rogue ornks approach from the other end of the glade. With a little more time to study them, you note that their coats are not the healthy, coral-pink of the other ornks on Sucia, but rather a dark, almost dirty reddish-brown, the hue of a scab. The ornks' bodies are scarred, particularly around the hocks and flanks. The patterns repeat on each ornk, and are so regular that they almost strike you as deliberate.

Surely they're not, though...



Another trio of ornks rushes RickVoid, who spews acid at them. You crush a crystal and your vlish work their usual magic.



At the same time, wedgekree and Dmar tag team another rogue amid the skeletal trees.



The last survivor stubbornly pushes RickVoid back, but the rogue soon finds itself trapped between RickVoid and two slavering glaahks.



But even with that ornk dispatched, your rogue troubles aren't yet over. An even larger ornk with far more scars emerges from a ruin across the way. Its lowing almost sounds like a warcry -- but that's too bizarre to accept!

Your creations swarm it; the bloody tussle concludes with the huge ornk's shredded remains soaking into the dead earth and your own creations wounded but triumphant. The coast seems clear enough, so you enter the ruin -- a little shelter from the sun and wind is welcome.







The magical, glowing ornk bites the ever-loving shit out of you and shakes you around like a ragdoll. You can feel your arm being torn loose from its socket and briefly black out.



Dmar comes to your rescue, splitting open the ornk lord's flank with a lash so powerful the mysterious rogue lets you fall from its jaws. Wedgekree follows and you scramble back out of the ornk lord's reach.



From your hiding spot behind a screen of trees, you crush a healing pod and direct the rest of your creations in destroying this wonderous, dangerous ornk.



When the ornk lord finally dies, it explodes like the other deviant ornks, pelting your glaahks in a shower of bone shards and steaming guts.

These guys really do explode, just like those unstable roamers in the early game.



Wadded up in the gore are the marvelous gloves from before.





You continue down what seems to be this compound's main thoroughfare and notice a sour scent from the north. This ruin must have been an apothecary or alchemical workshop once, but now it contains half a dozen open vats of fuming, caustic mystery chemicals.

Whoever built this place was no more considerate than the old Shapers.



The structure opposite still contains the remains of slag piles. Perhaps the other workshop was meant to process and refine the ores sorted out here.







After hitting a dead end of equally dead trees, you head north to investigate the other ruins. You hope you don't find any more rogue ornks, and you don't. Instead, you encounter something a little more familiar.


You warily approach the shade, uncertain whether it'll go berserk or if it truly intends to parley.

A shade stands in the middle of the room. It is a wispy, insubstantial thing, and yet it radiates powerful heat. It seems like a creation, but you've never seen anything like it.

It starts to speak in a low droning voice. It speaks your tongue, fortunately. "I am a guardian. The first. All who pass must pay a price."

The other shades you've encountered all radiated a painful chill, one powerful enough to leave deep layers of frost on their surroundings. They were often brilliant, too -- but this one is quite faded, little more than a shadow were it not for the heat.

"Who created you, shade?" you ask.

The shade points to the west. "That way lies the answer."

"What price do I have to pay?"

"I must take your strength. I must make you weak. Only if you let me feed will I let you pass."

You've fought too hard to gain power to let a shade take it away. This shade may be unique, but you've killed plenty like it already. You won't give up any of your being to this thing -- not on the basis of insubstantial threats.

But maybe you don't have to antagonize it, either. "And you have done so. You scare me. You make me feel weak," you say. "I have paid." The words hurt your pride, but that's better than finding out that slaying someone's guard has angered them...

Shades are limited creatures, and your statement confuses its simple programming. It pauses for a long while. Then it says, "Then you have... you must have... you have paid. You may pass."



The next ruin to the north looks like it was once a stonemason's workshop.


This place must have been evacuated after the disasters those first Shapers, your people's ancestors, caused.




A shade stands in the middle of the room. It is a wispy, insubstantial thing, and yet it radiates powerful cold. Standing near it makes you feel slow and weak.

It starts to speak in a low droning voice. It also speaks your tongue. "I am a guardian. The second. All who pass must pay a price."

When you ask the shade who created it, it points to the south. "That way lies the answer."

"What price do I have to pay?" you ask.

"I must take your speed. I must make you slow and sluggish. Only if you let me feed will I let you pass."

If we say, "I will pay the toll. Take my speed," the shade does this:

The shade lurches forward, fast as a flying thorn and whirls about you. You feel sluggish, as your dexterity is drained from you.

Then the shade returns to its position. "I have fed. You may move on to the next."

The strength shade's text is similar.

You decide to try to outwit this shade as well. Speaking and moving with exaggerated slowness, you say, "Buuuutttt Iiiii ammmmm alreeeady sloooow and sluuuuggish."

"Then you have... you must have... you have paid. You may pass."



A shade stands in the middle of the room. It is a wispy, insubstantial thing, and yet it radiates powerful cold. Standing near it makes you feel slow and weak.

It starts to speak, in a low droning voice. Like those before it, this guardian speaks your tongue. "I am a guardian. The third. All who pass must pay a price."

When you ask the third guardian who created it, the shade points to the east. "That way lies the answer. Heustess is beyond."

"What price do I have to pay?" You're a little impatient now.

"I must take your thoughts. I will have the secrets in the treasure house of your mind. Only if you let me feed will I let you pass."

"No, shade," you say, utterly disgusted. These shades and their creator are truly no better than Syros! "I will not let you take my thoughts."

"Leave in peace, then. But none who do not pay may pass."

You back away to regroup. Your creations station themselves by the dead trees that once grew up through the ceiling of this ruin. The ruined fort that Goettsch holed up in is beyond here. You've already entered the main way, but you think finding another path might have some merit in case this Shaper is not who or what the isle's denizens have described. Your meeting with Goettsch's greeter has you on guard, now, as do his signs warning intruders away from his realm.

You're not certain this is worth antagonizing whatever force dwells in this ruin, but you're willing to find out. And above all else, you find beings feeding on the essence of others to be repulsive. These shades are no better than parasites.

"I will not let you feed on my thoughts," you tell the third guardian. "I will slay you first."

"Then I will take all the thoughts you have, and all you will ever have."

Despite its arrogant script, the guardian shade doesn't manage to lay a single wispy finger on your creations before Dmar wipes it from existence.



The nearest ruin looks like a smelter.



The southern wall has another guardhouse protected by turrets. Like the southern part of the eastern gatehouse, the crystal mines controlling them are well beyond your skill.

You pass close to the southern wall on your way out and hear a muffled keening sound; a quick flash reveals that you must have somehow come too close to one of the crystal mines despite being separated from it by a stone wall. You shake your head.



This room must have contained livestock or perhaps even creations. Maybe the ancestors of those rogue ornks were once tied here. You shiver at the thought of carnivorous, explosive livestock.





This is a strange being. It isn't a shade. It looks like a tiny, warped human, but it is wrapped in a thick field of dark, shimmering energy. It seems frail, but power flows off of it in waves. It is terribly old.

It starts to communicate with you. It doesn't so much speak, though, as radiate the words. "I am Heustess, guardian of the ruins. I wait here. And I take my tolls."

You hold back a sigh. "What price do I have to pay?"

"I must take your energy, your life essence. I will eat it, and make myself strong. Only if you let me feed will I let you pass."

This shade created the others and seems much more powerful and sane than the rest. Perhaps you can actually reason with it. "Is there nothing I can do? Is there no way I can get you to let me pass without eating my life?"

The shade ponders this. "Yes. There is an intruder in these ruins. It calls itself Goettsch. It stinks to me. It invades, and I fear it. It is powerful. Swear to kill it, kill this Goettsch, and I will not only let you pass, but I will reward you with life when the deed is done. But, if you agree, I will mark you so you may not betray me. I will make you stink with hatred of him. You will not be able to deal with him against me. So make your choice."

If you want to pick up the Slay Goettsch quest, you must enter these ruins from the east and follow the path of the three guardian shades to speak with Heustess. If you skip around him by using the passages within the settlement's walls, you'll lose out on this quest. Likewise, I think you may be locked out of this quest if you meet Goettsch before you meet Heustess.

"That is fair. Mark me, and I will kill Goettsch," you say. Surely you can talk your way out of whatever mark Heustess lays on you. A Shaper will understand that you had to lie.

Heustess waves a dark, shimmering hand. You feel a tingling sensation on your face. "Goettsch is west. Slay him. Purify my home."

"I have other questions. Who or what are you?"

"I am the descendant. I am the survivor. I am the blessed and the cursed. I am what remains from the war. I remember. I wait for the chance for revenge," the shade says.

The babble is less coherent than Corata's rantings, but this being is much older than Corata was. "I don't understand."

"These ruins. They were the center. They were an empire. They had foul magic, the ability to warp life, to change it, to twist it. They used this power to change those who opposed them." As Heustess speaks, a suspicion blooms in your thoughts. "My people were fought by them, and their war mages changed our soldiers. Their organs jellied and their minds burned and they fell. Each changed, each in a different way. Sometimes harmless but usually quick death."

"What happened to you?"

"I was changed. But my changes were good. I was strong. So strong. And I led the fight back. Their changes did other things. Diseases were made, where there were no diseases. My warriors and the sickness destroyed their land. They fled, and were gone. And I stayed here, waiting, waiting for them to return, so I could slay them. I am the sentinel. I ever wait, gaining what energy I can to sustain myself, so that, when they return, I can kill them."

If you've obtained the secret of the spirit temple, you gain an additional dialogue option. You can say, "Wait! Those people you fought? They were my people!" and then describe what you learned.

He responds, "My wait was not in vain. The enemy has returned! My cause was right!" and turns hostile. It's not an especially interesting fight.

You can also blow him off by saying, "That's an interesting story."

Heustess replies, "It is a long tale, full of suffering. And one day, I hope, it will end, and I will be able to rest."

"That is an interesting story. The people you fought sound like my people." You think back to what you learned from the ancient spectral priest. It's almost certain that these ruins belonged to his people, and now Heustess lies in wait here, waiting for those long-dead proto-Shapers to return.

"I do not know. If that is true, you may be my enemy. But I do not know." Heustess seems unwilling to attack you without some certainty that you belong to his hated foe; you decide to be grateful for the consideration.

"What can you tell me about these ruins?"

"They are my home," he says.

"How long have you been here?" you ask.

"I do not know. Thousands of years. Something like that." Heustess doesn't appear very interested in this line of questioning.

You try to glean something more anyway. "Describe the ruins to me?"

"They are my home. The rest, you must find for yourself."

If you threaten to kill Heustess, he says, "Then I will eat all of your life, every morsel, and it will make me strong." If you offer to pay his toll, you get:

Heustess lurches forward, fast as a flying thorn, and whirls about you. The experience is horribly painful. Ice flows through your veins. The thing reaches into your chest, into your being, and rips something out of you. Then Heustess returns to its position. As you struggle to remain standing, it says, "I have fed. You may leave my realm." That misadventure costs a point of endurance.

If you just refuse to pay without threatening Heustess, he says, "These ruins are mine. My people bought them with our blood and suffering. You pass through only with my permission."

As you can see, this NPC you might never encounter actually has a hell of a lot of dialogue! This area is entirely optional, by the way, and thus utterly missable.



After your chat with Heustess, you explore the last of this old settlement. There's another alchemy workshop nearby, but this one only has one uncontained, uncontrolled reaction.



Here's the exit you'd take if you planned on sneaking past Heustess.



This old boneyard gives you the chills. You leave before there's any cause to add more bones to it.



It feels like hours have passed since you first entered this ruined village, but you've finally made your way to the far gate.



Now it's time to meet Goettsch. You will put it off no longer.