Part 47: Making Kaelyn Cry And Getting Kaji All Confused
The Truth, Part Five - The Dead Lie Dreaming
Cast your mind back to Act One...![](1-lpmotb_ch047_001.jpg)
Okku's barrow was built on top of a set of Imaskari ruins. In the ruins was a magical rod that could Dispel Magic three times a day.
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We used the rod to dispel the spirit-barrier trapping us inside the barrow. Unfortunately this took all the power the rod had and it crumbled into dust.
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A lich was hidden inside the rod, bizarrely enough. Breaking the rod set him free.
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And just like that he vanishes. Odd.
* * *
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All right, flashback over, back to the present day!
The Coveya Kurg'annis lies just across the water there. The hags of the Sunken City are our last lead in discovering more about our curse.
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As before, access to the city can be gained through nightfall. We are greeted by the dao genie Fentomy and a veritable horde of petitioners, waiting in line to hear the wisdom of the Slumbering Coven.
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But this time we have a new friend! If you freed him from the Imaskari Rod, then Maric of Inupras will appear here to offer us the bony hand of friendship.
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Kaelyn moans a bit but we ignore her complaints. A millenia-old archlich and court wizard to the ancient emperor of a long-lost empire joining your team as a temporary companion is the very definition of Epic.
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Even if he does have weird stats. 9 levels of Fighter what the hell?
* * *
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It's the same problem as the last playthrough: the Sunken City's on lockdown. Nobody is getting through to the Slumbering Coven.
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If you accept Fentomy's request to find and destroy the Primal Earth Elemental, he'll give you a key to a side-door that leads directly to the Skein. Theoretically it's a nice short-cut, but it forces Maric out of the party and I don't want that to happen just yet. Also, why would you skip the quite enjoyable petitioner puzzle sequence for the tedium of the Skein?
Instead we'll help Turlok and Mulv get rid of the petitioners outside, in exchange for letting us into the proper queue inside.
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We use Diplomacy and Bluff on the genasi prince and the mindflayer, like last time.
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Dealing with the telthor pack is a little trickier without Okku backing us up.
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We can't talk to them, but we can use spirit-eater powers against them.
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Provoking them turns them hostile and lets us kill them in combat.
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Again, without Okku to carry his coffin into daylight (or a PC with 25 Strength, or 18 Strength and Kaelyn's assistance), Count Crowroost must be destroyed through force. Either Kaji or Calliope can pick the lock...
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...or Maric can rouse Crowroost from his rest with a few choice words. As can aspiring Gothic-novelist One of Many:
quote:
: :: Hear me, blood drinker. A virgin runs alone... so alone, through an open field on this dark, dark night. ::
: :: A sliver of moonlight reveals porcelain skin... exposed skin. The soft skin pulses with life... ::
: :: And blood... Sweet blood. Pure, warm blood of the innocent. Yours. All yours. ::
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The end result is the same, though not as funny as Crowroost bursting into flames and running away screaming.
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Last up is the uthraki representative, who is considerably friendlier to Devouring spirit-eaters. The uthraki seek an audience with the Coven in order to find themselves a new hunting ground to feed their tribe.
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All right, so this shouldn't have happened. Completing the 'Knowledge for Blood' quest for U'juk's tribe should give us enough cachet with the uthraki for Gruuf to just give us the meat straight up. Obviously that hasn't happened.
Fortunately serendipity comes to our rescue.
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Oh no! Stupid monkey! Now Gruuf will have to go fetch more food!
Calliope is an equal-opportunity jerk.
* * *
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We've cleared the outside, but three more petitioners await us inside in the queue proper.
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Maric provides some backstory to the Sunken City, explaining both why he returned here after being freed and why the hags chose these ruins to hold court over Rashemen.
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We'll buy Kepob the child-mute from the ogre mage, like we did before - and this time we'll keep him alive too.
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We could give Kepob to the uthraki in second place, if we wanted to. Our party is starting to look a bit unwieldy.
We could also offer up our companions, losing Influence with them but gaining it with One of Many. In fact One of Many enjoys it when the uthraki feed on anyone - except the player.
quote:
: :: You should feed on them, Dark One, not them on you. If anyone feeds on you, it should be me. ::
Foreboding!
Instead we offer up the Mysterious Meat we got from Gruuf. Hey, it keeps our inventory tidy.
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Last of all is Ankhriva the tyrant, formerly of Shrimar.
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One of Many scares half of Ankhriva's guard away. He's understandably upset...
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Maric can also scare half of Ankhriva's thralls away, but he'll attack afterwards despite his missing minions. With both undead in the party, though, Ankhriva has no one to back him up, so he bottles it. If you don't decide to execute him, he becomes one of Maric's servants:
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I've got to admit I'm in two minds about this sort of thing. Obsidian put some decent effort into this sequence with Maric the Artificer... effort which perhaps could have been better spent on something else. Maybe only a third of players will ever free Maric from the rod in the barrow, meaning only a third will ever encounter him at the Sunken City - less than that, even, since freeing Maric requires you to give up a powerful magical item. So all this content is available to only a fraction of people playing.
I mean, it's a few extra dialogue options and an extra entity on the Nightshore map but something about it rubs me the wrong way, you know? It's not like Okku/One of Many, because that choice was obvious; this choice has no link between destroying the Imaskari Rod and getting a temporary archlich companion for the Coveya Kurg'annis petitioner quest.
On the other hand Alpha Protocol is basically made up of stuff like this and that turned out pretty well. Plus it is kinda cool.
* * *
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Regardless, after much effort on our part, we get to meet with the Slumbering Coven and learn some of the answers to our questions.
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Oh wait, that doesn't happen.
At least we now get to see what happens when we bring Kepob and Maric to the Skein.
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Fuckers!
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Oh no, not again...