Part 9: War Crimes(But the Good Kind)

Update 09: War Crimes(But the Good Kind)



Dear diary, after careful consideration of the fact that both the dragon hunters and the church of the sun were, as Jasp put it, "pricks of the highest degree," we all resolved to support the dragons and the necromancers in their-
Oh no we didn't! Stop that narrating at once! I will no longer take part in this evil enterprise! I'm headed straight to the Murmurwoods to warn the church what you're doing!
Maylander was a bit high strung about the whole situation, but since he was pretty high-strung about most situations, I didn't take him seriously until he managed to walk right off the hillside while yelling invective at us. I think he landed softly, but no one really wanted to check, since he'd probably just start yelling again.





Sandro seemed eager to have our help, declaring that all they needed for the defense of Shadowspire was the Nightshade Brazier, which would allow them to defend themselves during the day, too.
It's rather a relief that they just want a nightlight, not some sort of superweapon that we might feel slightly guilty about giving them.
Jasp took the words right out of my pen, this felt like all the proof we needed that we'd made the right choice. Now, though, we had to go give Dyson Leland the news... hopefully he would be cooperative.




I am riven by angst, you must forgive me if I brood darkly and give the appearance of being a damaged badboy type that you desperately want to rescue from himself.
Wow! That's such a cool aura! I know that I shouldn't, but I want to resolve his internal strife and show him that it's still possible to love.
I was hoping for an elf princess, but I'm too angsty to be picky.

So Dyson Leland is...



Absolute dogshit. Why the fuck doesn't he have Light Magic either? Maybe it was originally planned as inaccessible until they got their promotion and thus the recruitables are without it? He's also level fucking fifteen which is like half what the rest of the party has at this point. Off-screen things are done to resolve this problem.

Another thing about Dyson, though, is that he's the only recruitable in the game, outside of Overdune Snapfinger, who's connected to some triggers when you have him along. Rather than merely being a quest objective, though, the Church of the Sun and the Shadowspire Necromancers' Guild have some dungeon items that only function/spawn at all when he's along.

In any case, time to Town Portal out of here to Alvar and get on our way.




Mmmm, it seems like things are getting somewhat serious, so this is where I, Jasp Thelbourne, will be leaving you.
This came completely out of left field. Jasp was leaving us? I hadn't expected it, but I had somewhat come to count on him as a voice of reason and unexpected competence.
You never know, I may pop up in the final episode to save you all, carrying an array of new gear and with a stylish scar or two. But it's clearly time for you all to stand on your own two feet-
Or four paws!
-or four paws, without my advice. Still, I arranged for someone to take my place, someone who's almost as competent as me...
'tis I! Cauri Blackthorne! You may know me from my line of action figures, collectible plates and the novelty Pez dispenser shaped like my head!



Cauri Blackthorne! This was a surprise. But I suppose she felt she owed us after we saved her from being a statue...
That and my sponsorship deal with the city of Alvar mandates that I must participate in one world-saving adventure per year, and I missed out on the one in Enroth.
Even I've heard of her, this party becomes ever more fortified. It's enough to make you wonder why we dragons build lairs and surround ourselves with our brood when adventuring parties are so much safer...



Unlike Leland, Cauri is muy bueno. Starting off at level 50 and maxed in pretty much every skill you want her to be good at, sure, she can always use more points in her dagger skill to stab enemies better, but she's supremely dangerous as she is, plus she comes with a lot of quite good gear right off the bat. She gets Jasp's artifact bow and one of his daggers for off-handing, but that's about all she needs.





We've also hit the point where all the overworld maps get repopulated by enemies. Unlike MM6 and 7 who had varied repopulation times per map, it feels like MM8 repopulates the entire overworld at once.

I am wracked with dark thoughts as we march on the Murmurwoods. Is it right for me to betray the Church of the Sun even though they are-
Absolute dickheads?
Pointlessly anti-undead chauvinists?
The ones who started the fight?
-you're making it very hard to stay angsty about this. It's almost starting to feel like we're doing the right thing.





Time to kick down the front doors and make our way in. I'm sure they'll be super suspicious of us arriving with Leland in tow.




I even bought and cast Invisibility for just such an eventuality, but nope, turns out that until practically the last step of the dungeon, they're all non-hostile, thus proving that they're also dumber than the Necromancers who have several "off-limits to visitors"-areas that will prompt local security to get out the batons and start swinging.






Once we entered the temple, I let Leland take the lead, but I really had to ask him what we were looking at, here.
We're looking at the sign of hopelessness itself. This is to be the entrance to the deeper vaults, but it's sealed! We must now brave the deepest security measures of the Church of the Sun to open it and continue my quest of vengeance.



You mean this button upstairs?
...yes.

This button, by the way, doesn't exist unless you have Leland along, though even then it's still perfectly undetectable without a Perception score of 20, since it's completely flush with the wall and doesn't have a different texture. Once it's pressed, though...




This doesn't look very safe.
Further proof that we're fighting the forces of evil: no OSHA compliance.

The way into the deep vault is literally just a straight drop that probably breaks every priest's ankles as they go down it.




And then you're looking right at the Nightshade Brazier and still no one's hostile.





Everyone was still being very civil to us, but I got the feeling that, perhaps, once we grabbed the Brazier, that would end. I asked Cauri how she gauged the situation, since she was the most experienced of us.
From my decades of experience fighting the forces of evil and looking good doing it, I'd say you're right on the money. Plus the walls will probably fold down and reinforcements will flood in.
Wow! How can you tell that? Was it some sort of subtle clue?
No, I can literally see the priests hiding in there.



Real subtle. Anyway, let's get to heisting.



You know, a thought occurs about this theft.
Are you crippled by the moral ambiguity that we're stealing in the ostensible service of good?
No, because I'm not an imbecile. I'm wondering how we're meant to get out afterwards.



...ah, yes, an important consideration.

Anyway, now the entire temple hates us and, yes, there's no obvious way out from down here. You might be able to Jump back up, but so far no dungeon in MM6, 7 or 8 has been designed with Jump as a requisite, so that seems unlikely. While we ponder this, let's look at the new friends now trying to murder us.


They are incredibly fragile, but through a combination of having Physical damage ranged attacks and Light damage spells(Light Bolt on the 1st and 3rd tier ones, the mid tier gets Day of the Gods instead. All of them can also cast Heal at varying levels of power, which would be scary if grouped with tougher monsters, not so much when most party members can one or two-shot even the 3rd tier), they can output a lot of hurting in a short amount of time and resistances won't take the edge off. Combined with literally being surrounded by them, with no space to run, no place to hide, no cover to take, and this can turn pretty painful pretty fast, especially if you come here early. You can't even Town Portal out since it's supremely unlikely you'd have Grandmaster Water by this point(at Master tier, you can't Town Portal while enemies are nearby).




Class/gender-preferential targeting for enemy AI is non-existent in MM8 according to the guide, so I have no idea why they keep blowing up Arachne, though she does survive, just getting KO'd. I think someone mentioned that instead the "main" character of the party is now always the preferred target, but it hasn't really been the case before that she's been targeted like this, so potentially it's still something the enemies do, just used much less and not listed anywhere.



Truly, now there is no going back, I have slain my brethren... I shall forever be a sinister blackguard, an antihero.
You can mope after you fix up Arachne, boy, and help us find a way out of here.
Oh, getting out of here will just take patience, nothing more.

Notice anything different about the altar in the center of the room? That's right, it's slowly descending.





Hell, I can see why you wanted to get rid of these folks, Leland. If you have to go through this every time you want to get something out of the basement, imagine the gauntlet just to get to the bathroom.

Leaving by the back door puts us out in front of the temple(where the entirety of the Murmurwoods population is now hostile...) which is a great time to pop a town portal back to Shadowspire.







I was feeling very pleased with myself, outside of the minor incident of my unconsciousness, we had now secured almost all the alliances for saving Jadame without a hitch.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK0dqPwVepk

I feel like the Nightshade Brazier was originally meant to do something more sinister than just "now we can defend ourselves during the day, too!" based on this cutscene, like aggressively re-animating the dead for Shadowspire's defense or some such.



Now it was time to head to Garrotte Gorge and settle our issues with the Dragon Hunters once and for all.
The best part of a quest is when you're facing enemies with no ethical or moral complexity, who are just absolute dickheads in need of a good thrashing.
They're probably the only people on Jadame who'd brag about engaging in child slavery and raising child soldiers.




...how am I supposed to feel angsty and conflicted about killing these people again?
You could always try being happy about it instead! See? Like this! I'm smiling!
In any case... I've stormed a few castles in my time. First thing you want to do is scout out the countryside. Nothing like getting the siege engines all set up and then having some camp you missed start raising hell.





...are dragon hunters supposed to be quite so, uh, sinuous and multi-armed?
It looked like we'd accidentally stumbled on a small army of nagas. Not quite who we'd come to Garrotte Gorge to kill but... we couldn't afford to have them cause us any trouble while we were dealing with the dragon hunters. Shame they couldn't be reasoned with and attacked us on sight.






Much like in Korbu's Crypt, we've far outstripped nagas by this point and they no longer present any sort of threat to us.




The Naga Vault starts off with this decision to mix in some serpent men from the very first dungeon with the nagas. Why is MM8 so bad about this? MM6 almost never did it(except for the Hermit's Isle dungeon), and MM7 largely avoided it, too. Were they intended as placeholders? Did the developers just not give a shit or horribly misgauge the difficulty curve?



The next chamber has five doors and five buttons.



Three of the buttons drop walls that just conceal a single angry naga.

I don't understand this. Is this a naga prison? Or did they hide in there with a packed lunch and just patiently wait until someone stumbled along and pressed the wrong button?



Another also contains a naga BUT has a secret back panel leading to loot as well.


]

Just more Ciatlen notes and a bit of gold, really.




And the last button lets us proceed onwards.




The nagas keep coming and they keep dying. Note that tube in the ceiling, though, it will become relevant.





This looks awfully suspicious.
Clearly a trapped button that must be pushed to proceed. Perhaps this is where I can redeem myself, I can bravely stride forth and push-
Oh! A button! Lemme push it!



This trap does not fuck around. And I kind of wish the game had more stuff like it! You can trivially avoid getting blasted by using the Telekinesis spell if you have it, in general the MM games would've been greatly spiced up by being able to use spells like that to dodge traps or use shortcuts, but what options there are for it seem largely unintentional.

Brushing a bit of char off the edges of my diary, I tried to help Ithilgore understand that not all buttons were for pushing or, at least, not immediate pushing.
...a button that's not for pushing? The world is weird.






Going the other way yields nothing, just another Ciatlen entry.

Hm, perhaps we missed something, team. Let's head back the way we came and keep our eyes open.



Yeah, pressing the button makes the important chest of the dungeon descend from a tube out of the ceiling. Naga engineering, I guess.




It contains the Drum of Victory for a Dragon Hunter quest(I huck it in the nearest pond instead) and an artifact shield!



It's actually a great find if, for some reason, you have to engage Basilisks or Gorgons on the ground, especially since your Priest is almost certain to be going mace+shield, and having him available to, at least, un-Paralyze team members is important. It'd be even better if your Necromancer could wield it, since then they'd be able to un-stone them. Alternately, unless you get supremely unlucky with shop spawns(like I did), Protection From Magic should also be an option to make this thing completely pointless. In fact, if you have that, using this shield is just for style points since it at that point literally only penalizes you.




Trivial but rousing! At least now we know there are no Dragon Hunters in this part of Garotte Gorge. Onwards to the south, they must have some camps scattered about the countryside.




As we explored the southwestern reaches of Garotte Gorge, we spotted a small campsite in the distance. Hm, hadn't the dragons asked us to deal with some lone dragon hunter and his crew? Jerik Whistlebone? It looked like it was about to become Jerik's unlucky day.





For a game where "can make the entire party fly" is a core ability for not one, but two of the character classes, MM8 has a surprising dearth of ground-bound enemies with ranged attacks. Dragon Hunters can theoretically hit a bit hard, but are about as fragile as Priests of the Sun and have no ranged attacks, so while they're outside like this, they're going to have a very bad day.




More like Jerk Whistlebone! That's for my uncle!
Not bad, Ithilgore, but you want it to be more like... Jerik Whistlebone, for your crimes against dragonkind, you will perish in our immortal flames! You know, something that people will really remember when they hear it.
I didn't want to tell Flamdring, but I rather preferred Ithilgore's jibe. It was snappy.




Jerik's sword is a bit of an oddity given that if you have it, you're almost certainly not going to be killing too many dragons. Also as always, any class good enough with swords to use them will be able to dual-wield them, at which point two-handed swords become entirely irrelevant. For us, though, it's just proof of payday.




The next step is murdering all the patrolling dragon pets and dragon hunters outside the town. Strangely, the "pet" dragons aren't actually statted in the strategy guide, but like the dragon hunters themselves, they lack ranged attacks.




The fastest way to kill them requires getting up close and personal, so Arachne gets a few new scars out of the bargain.



It's better for them this way, to be freed from slavery by our hand.
I've killed my share of dragons over the years, but this makes even me sad.





I have to confess, diary, that despite the dragon hunters' claims to virtue, their fortress looked even more sinister than the Necromancers' Guild in Shadowspire. Perhaps it was because I knew what went on in there that it unsettled me so.




There was no time for subtlety or intrigue, the moment the doors opened Flamdring and Ithilgore incinerated the first few unfortunate guards and set the rest to flight.




See, there it is again, underlevelled enemies mixed in with the rest. Those mercenaries have been dogfood for about a dozen levels by now.





By all that's holy, what is that thing?
Perhaps... someone's attempt... at a table?
I know that as a tourist I had always wanted to see strange and unusual things, things that few could say they had ever seen, but I'd never wanted to see something this weird.

I'm sorry but this table is just so infinitely fucking stupid. It's the most moron piece of furniture ever invented. "Let's waste five times as much material to get the exact same amount of seating space and also have to yell to each other." This is the objective proof that the Dragon Hunters are scum if you ever needed it.




Is it normal human behavior to hide eight men together in a secret room behind a bookcase? Did we interrupt something intimate?

About the only loot score in the Dragon Hunters' Castle(which I'm only in because killing EVERY Dragon Hunter, apparently including the ones in here, is required for one of the Dragons' quests) is in this room. It contains eight chests, seven of which just have supremely low-level loot, but the eighth has something interesting.



I forgot to examine this weird-looking sword in-game, but from the strategy guide...

Snake: "(Slows target, Water Resistance -50, Personality -15) The pommel of this sword is gruesomely butted by a shrunken Medusa’s head. Though greatly diminished, the Medusa’s power flows along Snake’s blade and into its targets—a good design, but poorly implemented, for some of the negative energies flow into the sword’s wielder as well."

It's a pretty damn awful weapon since most enemies go down like a sack of potatoes in moments, so for a debuff that'll last about two swings, you take a huge hit to your Water Resistance.

However, there are signs that the Dragon Hunters' fortress was originally meant to have more content, for instance, if we shove a few more dragon hunters into lockers we find...





The stairs, past a hole knocked in one of the walls. So they're secret stairs.





Despite having a few hunters positioned down here, there are no chests, no incidental items and no interactibles, which is a shame. Because as milquetoast as the rest of the fort is, climbing through the hole in the wall into the deeper parts was pretty atmospheric and more of that would have made it into a cool dungeon.





Returning to the outside world, we were filled by a deep and abiding sense that we had destroyed most of the dragon hunters, at least every single one not cowering with Quixote in his throne room. Thinking back on it, we weren't quite sure what the dragons wanted for their participating in the alliance... but surely it had to be something like this.





I cash in a couple of quests before we hear what Deftclaw actually wants from us.




From the original phrasing on this quest when we got it, it felt strongly like it was originally intended to be one we had to complete to even get access to Deftclaw, but as it is, it just yields XP.





Check out that huge SP boost for turning Ithilgore and Flamdring into Great Wyrms, considering how much I make use of their AoE breath weapon spells, that's supremely useful.




Now, you might note that we got that egg some updates back, but from Zog, not the Dragon Hunters. If you talk to Quixote, he tells you that he tried to sell the egg to Zog but Zog just stole it from him instead. Nothing in the Dragon Hunters' fort or anywhere else in the world indicates this, so if you just decide to team up with the dragons and never interact with the Dragon Hunters(outside of killing them), you'll only stumble across the egg by accident. But since we DO have it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIrtBWBHrU8

Deftclaw does NOT fuck around when he says he's going to kill his enemies.



With the alliance secured, it was best for us to head back to Ravenshore and see how it worked out. It was unclear exactly how, but supposedly everyone working together was supposed to un-explode Jadame.







The Ravenshore merchants' guild now has a 3D interior which is completely pointless. You can use it as a back entrance to the library, for those super-vital clues, or you can stash stuff safely in some boxes down at the bottom, though MM8 doesn't really overburden you with so much stuff you can never carry it, and it's not like you ever need spare consumables or multiple sets of gear for each character. Instead, just head across the staircase and into the alliance offices.



It always struck me as a bit odd that neither the Trolls or the Lizardmen are represented on the council, considering that they're also some of the larger groups on Jadame.




Regnans, always Regnans. How can one band of pirates be so troublesome?





Deftclaw didn't seem particularly pleased to be in Ravenshore. I wondered how much longer the guild could keep him here before he did more damage than the impending apocalypse.
You'd probably be pretty cranky, too, if every building was either too cramped for you, or you could only stick your head in a window.




Masul isn't very helpful, but at least he's nice and doesn't seem about to burn the city down.




I have to admit that Sandro is nicer than the old head priest. You'd never catch him saying "thank you" for a piece of work well done.




We thanked the Alliance council for their help(which mostly consisted of bossing us around, only Deftclaw had anything particularly useful to tell us) and headed outside. It seemed clear that we'd be returning to Dagger Wound Island, and then onwards to Regna... but were we ready to travel right into the heart of darkness?
As I'm now a Great Wyrm, officially, I was always one at heart, I can say that I'm ready.
We've been ready for everything so far! It can't possibly go wrong!
The dragons were eager and, to be fair, nothing had slowed them down so far. But what about the newer members of the party?
I've defeated the greatest enemy there is... myself, and chosen my path. What more could challenge me?
Ithilgore, do you think we should bring an artist to paint me striding on to the beaches of Regna now, or just get one to paint it after the fact? Would it be that much more authentic?
No lack of confidence from Cauri or Leland either. Perhaps I was the only one with doubts, perhaps I was the only weak link... hmmm... I was in fact, the only member of the party yet to receive my official promotion. Perhaps that would settle my nerves.

VOTE

Get Arachne her Lich Promotion and clean up a few other minor quests before going to Regna or throw caution to the wind and sail as we are? Of course with any team replacements the thread desires.

ALTERNATE SCENARIOS

So, there's not a lot of interesting stuff about doing the two other quests, gameplay-wise. The Necromancers' Guild takes a bit more work toget through than the Church of the Sun(and got Leland blown up), but handing the egg to Quixote is literally no more challenging than handing it to Deftclaw. It does, however, get you two different cutscenes... I may be squeamish, but personally I always found the Dragon Hunter cutscene pretty gross.

In the basement of the Necromancers' Guild, there's a machine re-animating skeletons for the necromancers, in-game it just looks like a big tube, in-cutscene however... it's this weird bio-mechanical gross spider-looking thing. Also since the cutscene only players if you bring a (living) Dyson Leland there, I can only assume it's him cosplaying as a wizard and pew-pew'ing the gross thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlcZBrnm014

As for the Dragon Hunters? War Crimes. So many War Crimes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vTSyS2AdqQ

Fuck these guys, I'm glad they're dead.