Part 8

Watch it here:

Video - Soul Reaver Intro

Raziel:
"Kain is deified. The Clans tell tales of Him. Few know the truth."

Raziel:
"He was mortal once, as were we all. However, His contempt for humanity drove him to create me, and my brethren."

Raziel:
"I am Raziel, first-born of His lieutenants. I stood with Kain and my brethren at the dawn of the empire. I have served Him a millennium."

Raziel:
"Over time, we became less human and more... divine."

Raziel:
"Kain would enter the state of change and emerge with a new gift."

Raziel:
"Some years after the master, our evolution would follow..."

Raziel:
"...until I had the honor..."

Raziel:
"...of surpassing my lord."

Raziel:
"For my transgression, I earned a new kind of reward..."

Raziel:
"Agony."

Raziel:
"There was only one possible outcome - my eternal damnation."

Raziel:
"I, Raziel, was to suffer the fate of traitors and weaklings - to burn forever in the bowels of the Lake of the Dead."

Kain:
"Cast him in."

Raziel:
"Tumbling, burning with white-hot fire, I plunged into the depths of the abyss."

Raziel:
"Unspeakable pain... relentless agony... time ceased to exist... only this torture... and a deepening hatred of the hypocrisy that damned me to this hell."

Raziel:
"An eternity passed, and my torment receded, bringing me back from the precipice of madness."

Raziel:
"The descent had destroyed me... and yet I lived."

Elder God:
"Raziel... you are worthy!"

And thus we begin the next chapter in this story, following the trials and tribulations of Raziel - cast into the abyss, saved from death by an entity known only as 'The Elder God'. It's important to note that what we're seeing here is not Raziel suddenly standing up at the bottom of the lake of the dead - he died in the descent. The Elder God governs what is known as the Wheel of Fate - an unceasing cycle of birth, death and rebirth, as he calls it. It was by his will alone that Raziel exists.

Watch it here:

Video - Raziel meets the Elder God

Elder God:
"I know you, Raziel. You are worthy."

Raziel:
"What madness is this? What pitiful form is this that I have come to inhabit? Death would be a release, next to this travesty."

Elder God:
"You did not survive the abyss, Raziel. I have only spared you from total dissolution."

Raziel:
"I would choose oblivion over this existence!"

Elder God:
"The choice is not yours."

Raziel:
"I am destroyed!"

Elder God:
"You are reborn.

The birth of one of Kain's abominations traps the essence of life. It is this soul that animates the corpse you 'lived' in. And that Raziel, is the demise of Nosgoth. There is no balance. The souls of the dead remain trapped. I can not spin them in the wheel of fate. They can not complete their destinies.

Redeem yourself. Or if you prefer, avenge yourself. Settle your dispute with Kain. Destroy Him and your brethren. Free their souls and let the wheel of fate churn again. Use your hatred to reave their souls... I can make it possible. Become my soul reaver, my angel of death...

Raziel thusly embarks upon his journey, with one goal in mind: finding Kain, and killing him.

Raziel exists, now, in the Spirit Realm. He has no substance, and is not visible to anyone in the Material Realm (where Kain and, until he was cast into the Abyss, Raziel) exist. This is where the souls of the dead go - purgatory, if you will. Furthermore, beings existing in the Material Realm are not visible to those in the Spirit Realm.

The general lay of the land is similar to that of the Material Realm - but not identical. Some things in the Spirit Realm are twisted, or different in some way. Furthermore, water has no substance here - it's as thin as air (and Raziel is, actually, underwater now - at the bottom of the Lake of the Dead).

Exiting the Elder God's chambers, Raziel finds this curious structure.

Elder God:
"These gates twist space, laying a path across great spans."

Raziel steps in front of the gate, and it springs to life.

Elder God:
"You must visit other gates before this portal will be opened to you."

These gates serve the same function as the Bat Beacons in Blood Omen - Raziel can enter one, and emerge at any other of his choosing, but only after visiting them, to activate them.

Raziel stumbles as he proceeds down the corridor, clutching his chest.

Elder God:
"You are weak - you must feed."

Raziel:
"The old hunger has left me; I have no desire for blood."

Elder God:
"You are changed. Your blood-thirst is replaced by a deeper need - you have become a devourer of souls."

Elder God:
"To sustain your strength, you must hunt the lost spirits of the Underworld, and consume the souls of your enemies."

Raziel can, we find, pull down his cowl and suck nearby souls into the remains of his mouth. This heals him, as blood heals vampires.

Elder God:
"Your wings, though ruined, are not without purpose. Take hold of them as you leap, and they will carry you across this chasm."

Raziel can jump, and grab his wings, allowing him to glide across a much greater distance then he could cover otherwise.

After consuming enough souls to bring himself to full strength, Raziel continues down the corridor, until he comes to...

Raziel:
"What scabrous wretches are these?"

Elder God:
"Sluagh, the scavengers of the Underworld. Their feral hunger has claimed countless souls - spirits who now shall never find their rest."

Raziel proceeds to beat it up, using the only weapon at his disposal: his hands. Upon "killing" the creature, it becomes gaseous and scrambles wildly to get away, but Raziel consumes it just as he did the wayward souls in the previous chamber.

In the next room, he finds...

Elder God:
"These portals are your conduit between the spectral and material realms. With their aid, you may gather matter and will yourself to become manifest in the physical world."

Elder God:
"This is taxing, however - your strength must first be fully restored. You require no conduit to return to this plane - you may abandon your physical body at any time."

Using the conduit, Raziel moves to the Material Realm, and finds himself in some manner of ruins.

Elder God:
"Sustain your strength to prolong your manifestation in the physical world. If you fail to feed, or absorb too many wounds, this fragile matter will dissolve."

Raziel, while in the Material Realm, must make a constant effort to remain there. This is taxing, and as such, his health drains constantly, albeit slowly. If his health on the Material Realm becomes empty... he is thrust unwillingly back into the Spirit Realm, wherever he happens to be at the time.

Elder God:
"As my agent, you are beyond death, Raziel. Your enemies cannot destroy you. If you grow too weak, however, you will always be drawn here, to recover."

Looking around, we see three possible exits from this area. The first is here, though it's blocked by this gate. For now, this way is inaccessible.

The second is here: but this wall is too high to jump. Once again, for now, this is impassible.

This is the third. When we were in the Spirit Realm, this water was insubstantial - the corridor we traveled while there was, in fact, within this body of water.

Elder God:
"You are young yet, Raziel - you still retain many of your vampiric weaknesses. Immersion in water, while not fatal, will dissolve your physical body, forcing your return to the spirit world. Be aware that in the spectral realm, water has neither heft nor lift. It stands as thin as air."

Good to know.

Leaping over the water, we encounter a new sight:

Raziel:
"What are these creatures?"

Elder God:
"Do you not recognize them? They are the children of your brother, Dumah."

Dumah was another of Kain's lieutenants. They consider their transformation into vampires to be a rebirth, and Kain to be their father - hense, they are all referred to as 'brothers'.

Raziel:
"That's impossible - these foul, scuttling beasts could not be kin of our high blood."

Elder God:
"Do you suppose that time stood still for you, Raziel? Much has changed since you passed from the world of men."

The beasts see Raziel, but he has a moment to reflect on the situation before they close on him.

Raziel:
"I knew my opponents' weaknesses, having suffered them myself. Physical wounds are fleeting - a vampire's immortal flesh begins to close as soon as it is cleaved."

Raziel:
"Vampires need only fear those wounds that impale, or inflame."

Raziel:
"Water scorches like acid, and fledglings are devastated by sunlight's touch."

Raziel:
"I would have to modify my tactics to suit my foes."

Bludgeoning vampire foes about the face and neck is all well and good - but it won't kill them, merely stun them. Over time (very quickly, in fact - a matter of seconds) they will regenerate (Visibly! Foes in Soul Reaver get bloodied as they're injured, and the wounds disolve as they heal) and recover, rejoining the combat. Further, some enemies heal themselves every time they strike Raziel.

So once they've become stunned, Raziel has to finish them off. This can be done by impaling them with a weapon, if he has one, setting them on fire, if he happens to have a torch handy (or a bonfire!), or picking them up bodilly and throwing them into some hazard - in this case, a set of spikes protruding from the wall. Water or sunbeams work as well.

When he does so, their soul is released from their body.

It's still up to Raziel to consume the soul - if he does not, and has merely impaled his foe, they won't really die. If they're removed at a later time from the impaling object (or it's removed from them!), they'll stand up immediately and attack. This is quite a surprise the first time you go to retrieve a weapon you've impaled one with, without first consuming the soul.

Elder God:
"Unfettered from the flesh, a creature's soul fades swiftly into the spectral realm. Draw it in quickly, Raziel, or you will be compelled to follow."

When burned, however, either in sunlight or with fire, they're dead. The soul is still released, but whether or not it is consumed, they're down for the count, permanently.

Ahh, here, we have one of the two underlying puzzle themes in the game: large, movable blocks.

Elder God:
"Your physical prowess surpasses what you knew in life. Even massive obstacles can be moved effortlessly."

That's good to know, because we'll be doing it a lot. Let's count. This is 1.

This one's pretty simple - we simply move the block against the wall so we can stand on it and jump to the ledge above.

At the top, we find this rather ordinary looking door...

...with a pair of very ordinary torches, which we can use as weapons.

Past the door, we emerge into a large courtyard, with a huge structure in it.

Raziel:
"My God... The Sanctuary of the Clans, reduced to ruin..."

Raziel:
"Beyond these walls lay the Pillars of Nosgoth, the seat of Kain's empire."

Raziel:
"How humble it now appeared, collapsing into the dust of its former magnificence."

Raziel:
"And yet I had only just emerged... In the instant between my execution and resurrection, centuries had apparently passed..."

A tremor shakes the area, Raziel falls to the ground.

The Elder God:
"This world is wracked with cataclysms - the earth strains to shrug off the pestilence of Kain's parasitic empire."

The Elder God:
"The fate of this world was preordained in an instant, by a solitary man. Unwilling to martyr himself to restore Nosgoth's balance, Kain condemned the world to the decay you see. In that moment, the unraveling began... now it is nearly played out. Nosgoth teeters on the brink of collapse - its fragile balance cannot hold."

Looks like he was paying attention in the first part of the thread!

After trying the doors...
Raziel:
"The doors of the Sanctuary were immovable, either barred from the inside or rusted shut. I would need to find another means of entry."

We do find this interesting decoration on the wall, however, which Raziel promptly vandalizes.

This makes for an excellent weapon...

...and once we've weakened a foe with it, we can perform the coup de grace without the need for environmental hazards.

Once we consume the soul of our victim, it's body disolves to ash, and we can safely reclaim our weapon.

Proceeding down the corridor, we come to this door. These mark the chambers with portals in them, so we'll be stopping at each one we come to to activate them for later use.

The symbols on the wall behind the portal is all you have to go by when selecting which one to enter - so it's good to keep track of which is which.

After activating the portal, we continue our trek...

...and find an all-too-familiar sight.

Raziel:
"This, at least, had remained constant. The endlessly swirling vortex of the abyss. My tomb, and the womb of my rebirth."

If we jump in here, Raziel dies, yet again, and finds himself back in the spectral realm at the bottom - right where we started. So we'll avoid doing that.

Raziel:
"Though much of Nosgoth's landscape had changed, these cliffs gave me my bearings. My clan territory was to the west - I was anxious to see how my descendants had fared during the centuries of my absence."

So we head to the west. As we do, we find another portal. Convenient!

Raziel:
"Utter desolation. My once-proud kin, wiped from this world like excrement from a boot. I knew the hand that wrought this deed..."

Raziel:
"I didn't recognize these flayed wracks of flesh. Their scent was vampiric, but they gnawed upon their victim's carcass like dogs."

These, it turns out, are the twisted remains of one of Raziel's brother's clans. As he dispatches them, the Elder God offers some insight.

Elder God:
"Beyond the ruins of your former stronghold, and above the gardens of the dead, your brother Melchiah waits..."

A little explaination is in order, I think.

As previously mentioned, at the moment of Kain's birth, he was corrupted by Nupraptor's madness. After he made his choice and damned Nosgoth, the vampires he created - his lieutenants - were infected with this same corruption. This had the side effect of facilitating their evolution, such as that which we saw in Raziel - but it did not last, and soon after, their devolution began.

Raziel was spared this fate, as he was cast into the Abyss before it could overtake him. His brothers and their clans, were not. Now, hundreds of years later, twisted by their curse, these abominations are all that remains of Kain's once proud empire.

Next time: We go in search of Raziel's brother, Melchiah, in hopes of discovering Kain's whereabouts.