Part 5: Update: Mission 4 Part 1 of FOUR

This is a biggie. It took me a while to successfully complete this mission. I'm going to have to stop for dinner, so I'll post the first half then and the second half after dinner. After that: There was a cutscene which explains a part of the story which deserves its own part and THEN we'll do the reaction.

I've got my work cut out for me tonight. Apologies for breaking it up, but I dont wanna keep you guys waiting much longer for an update.

Reminder: You chose JAMES for this mission

Terrorforming...oh jesus. That almost redeems my Lord Of The Flies joke.

Ooh...Ragman dead? That's an appealing prospect for the TRAITOR you made me! This is also what makes the mission difficult. If you're lucky and kill The Ragman before he gets an Altar built: You're golden. Otherwise: You're in some serious shit. It is suprisingly difficult to kill him because he's a fast bastard.

Step forward, claim the first Manavault.

That's our new unit the Flummox. Isn't he a pretty...thing. Unfortunately: He's pretty useless in this mission because your enemy is so damn fast they can outrun both the innacurate rocks and the Flummox himself. I find Flummox's awesome for defence where their supreme lack of mobility is not an issue

Like so. He does a brilliant job there and actually saves my ass once or twice. He does such a good job: I dont need to assign anything else to guard with him.

So I run forward way out into bumfuck nowhere and get the second Manalith. This one is later highly-contested.

Oh please no Tubgirl...

Well if it cannot be Mardu...oh wait.

Marduk: Greetings old friend, but they call me Ashur here.

Hammer Floyd: <sigh> Why have you come?

Marduk: Our bargain is incomplete. Your rivals have fallen, but our reckoning is not yet complete.

Hammer Floyd: My rivals? You destroyed everything! The very earth was crumbling at my feet!

Marduk: Do not blame yourself overmuch. The destruction of Jhera was pre-ordained. Content yourself that you were but a pawn...as you will be again.

As for you little Imp...I will not forget your role in all this.

Zyzyx: Is he gone? Oh master, there are other worlds; Other places we could go!

Hammer Floyd: Nay...We must do something to stop him this time.


Well that's interesting. Apparantly my guy is scared of somebody and he's not a mage. Apparantly I'm also indebpted to him and he demolished my home world. Perhaps that's why I'm indebted to him?

Anyways: On with the mission. I summoned some quick units and went down to meet The Ragman.

There he is! Completely vulnerable. Die bitch and I do mean DIE.

BOOM Motherfucker! That green cloud is the Ragman going up in his own vile juices. Note the mass of blue souls: My ass was kicked, but at least I'm ALIVE!

Well looky here. Cannon Fodder. Now I did mention that James' spell was really cool right? Allow me to show you.

Holy fuck.

Woah! It's like a Earth-Pimple! That's awesome! I'm flying in the air because I was standing too close, but at least I'm not that guy up there. This was how I managed to kill the Ragman. I'd knock him skyward and then kill him with Locusts who seem unaffected by it.

Megabitch showed up. That's the wizard Sorcha. She's VERY defensive and an absolute pain in the ass. She's very fast too so it's hard to get a bead on her. Ambassador Buta has the chubbies for her.

That big flying thing? That's Gammel. He's a pretty damn good flying Melee' raper, however, he somehow dissapeared and I dont know how or why. It's a bitch because he's this crusty old British dude who's pretty cool to have around. I think he must've died somehow

This is the one good thing Sorcha does. She leaves souls behind. See, her tactic is to go in, guns blazing, withdraw for a bit saving as many souls as she can but putting her own safety first. So she occaisonally leaves some behind. However: What she normally does is after retreating, to summon a few units to counter the ones I summoned to counter hers and come back to reclaim. This is why fighting her is such a bitch because she keeps countering your units. It's not like in the previous fights where they used only Melee' or Ranged. I have to constantly change the combination of units I'm using.

Fortunately: If I send some Sythes chasing her, she runs far away enough for me to capture the odd soul or two like these. If she has recently been using Spitfires (flying) though, they'll take out my Sythes first.

Anyways: I had about 3 or 4 different fights with her. Each time I got a fair few souls and slowly weakening her. Eventually: I managed to kill her which gave me some breathing time. Let's see if we can find out where she's coming from.

Aha! Taking that will make my life a shitload easier. Although what are those dudes doing over there?

(Psst: Take note of the black mushroom). Ohh that sneaky bitch. She had this one hidden in this valley thing. Using my Fallen (which have a longer range than her Spitfires) I sniped away her guardians and reclaimed that spot for my own Manalith.

PART ONE COMPLETE! STAY TUNED FOR PART 2!

PART 2 OF MISSION 4!

That Black Mushroom thingy? That's a Plague Wort. You may have noticed several bugs flying around and being a distraction on-screen. They're a part of the "terrorforming" which'll turn this place for boring grey rocks, into festering evil holes. James doesn't want this, so he wants us to destroy all of them. That green crap at the base is poison which is quite nasty to my Sythes, so I hold them back and send in my Fallen who kill it from afar. It blows up, just like everything else, unfortunately, I didn't get a shot of it because THIS was happening:

That's Sorcha running for my Altar. The Flummox earnt his pay quite spectacularly, and she ran off after two shots. However, that commenced the two-and-fro thing again and this one lasted for a while, with both of us kicking the others ass. These fights were always very intense, with neither side being a clear victor. I didn't have any time to take any action screenshots, because then she'd come back with her units to counter mine.

Except for this one. She died then in that swarm of Sythes. In fact: If she survived I would've been VERY pissed off. This gave us a fair bit of breathing room.

This gives us 3 options. I could go to the left and get that Manalith, Straight ahead or to the Right and get the one I missed before. I decide to go Right because it seemed like the right thing to do.

It seems like it was. There's Scorcha who's obviously just respawned. However: something else interested me.

That was her army. One tiny insignificant Manahoar. Looks like I've got all the souls now! Her constant retreating and abandoning of souls has bit her in the ass. BIG Time. Just because I can: I steal that Manahoar's soul and now: Sorcha is soul-less. Just like modern-day Pop. Reminder: No Souls = No creatures. She is completely and utterly defenceless.

So from here on in: It's a cakewalk. I walked from defenceless Manalith to defenceless Manalith, blowing it up and putting my own in place.

Each Manalith had a Plague Wort near it so I blew that up too. Just like that. However, that's the only screeny I bothered to get. Not much to show except explosions like that.

Poor thing doesn't even have any souls to protect her last 2 Manaliths right outside her Altar. Oh well, easy come easy go (No I will not let you go). I destroy them both and erect (teehee!) my own Manaliths

Since we've got some time: I thought I'd show you what the Flummox does. See that big boulder? It launches that from where it is sitting alllllll the way to that Plague Wort. Awesome range and it made short work of it.

Rightio, enough messing around. Time to bitchslap Sorcha back to Pyro and to be Buta's bitch.

Wow, my guy really doesn't like Marduck being around does he?

Heh...um...yeah. Except the last 3 missions right?

Anyways, he gives us a Boon :boonie: because we killed all the Plague Worts. I take on some more HP.

Alright! There's that bitch of a mission done.

STAY TUNED FOR PART 3 OF MISSION 4! Marduk? Marduk? Who da fuck is MARDUK?

PART 3 OF MISSION 4

Told ya this was a biggie.

Mithras: STOP STOP STOP! I wont hear ANOTHER WORD of your tale until you tell me who this Marduk is.

Hammer Floyd: Very well.

Hammer Floyd: In Jhera, I had been a man of substance.

Mithras: A lord? Or perhaps a King?

Hammer Floyd: A tyrant more like...You would've thought me an evil man.

Zyzyx: Most people did.

Hammer Floyd: There were others. Some good, some bad, some indifferent. I vied with them all...for Power.

***Distant Rumble***

Zyzyx: That's okay. We were heading South anyway.

Mithras: Please continue your tale. I will follow the sound of your voice.

Hammer Floyd: I laboured all my life to build another man's empire. When he died too young...FAR too young, Authority fell to me alone. But I was not as well loved as he was.

Zyzx: Despised more like it...

Hammer Floyd: Foreign Powers and internal conspirators plotted to tear the empire apart. My own people had turned against me. After all I had done for them. But their dull-witted prejudices would not destroy what I had laboured so long to build.

Yet the armies of my enemies grew too strong. I was forced to turn to dark, dark forces.

Mithras: So you summoned Marduk?

Hammer Floyd: Aye. But the demon was too powerful. I could not control it. The rest I need hardly tell because it is happening all around us.

It was the end of the world.

So now you know who Marduk is. He's not only a little bit more powerful than our hero, rather he wields power of stereotypically apocalyptic magnitude who turned both Jhera and this world into a wasteland. And I apparantly owe him something. Meanwhile: I have 5 gods trying to kill each other. What a lovely situation to be in.

LAST PART OF MISSION 3 COMING RIGHT UP! THANK GOD FOR THAT!

MISSION 4 (for those of you keeping count)! THE FINALE!

Hammer Floyd: I returned to the gods with new Purpose. My first step was to tell them what I knew of Marduk: who was calling himsef "Ashur".

Mithras: What did you tell the gods about Marduk?

Hammer Floyd: What I knew. He was a demon of untold power. A being who seemed to feed off the worlds to which he was summoned...a being of unlimited appetite.

Persephone: If Marduk is demon it is likely he was bought in through the portal in Golgotha

James: Oh no. No way can we attack Golgotha now. Charnel's too strong.

Stratos: There are secret paths through Empyria deep into Stygia. Abraxus would know the way.

James: Maybe so, but there are other things we ought to do something about. A large number of my followers were carted off to Pyroborea for one.

Stratos: True enough. Efforts should be made to hinder Pyro to prevent him from using these new slaves.

DECISION TIME!

Wow. Now Pyro and Charnel are pissed off at us so we cant help them. It's up to Stratos, James or Persephone.

Persephone: Marduk may be able to draw allies from the Demon Gate. Go to Golgotha and destroy it and you will destroy his base of Power.
Spell Offered: Rain Of Frogs. Frogs fall from the sky and slow the enemy down until they explode causing decent damage.
Units Offered: Gremlin. Like the Ikarus, but bites his enemy with big teeth. Can shoot a web to pull his enemies in nice and close so he can munch faster.

James: Most of the captured farmers have been taken to a place called Cincercrag. We've got to get in there before they're lost forever.
Spell Offered: Halo of Earth. A ring of floating rocks orbit you and launch themselves at any nearby enemy causing decent damage.
Units Offered: Ikarus. Remember Gammel? He's one of them. A big flying rock who hurts like hell and drops sticky bombs on people.

Stratos: The defence of this alliance is really the only important matter. By attacking Pyroborea's borderlands, we should be able to draw some of his forces and facilitate James' actions.
Spell Offered: Soul Wind which fetches blue souls to give to you and turns red souls to blue souls, available to all. Shoots lightning at anybody who comes close.
Units Offered: Seraph. An evil-looking Gremlin who does more damage.

Pyro: Go away.

WHAT? Hey man! I thought we were cool! Remember when I helped you kill them trolls? Good times eh! Ahhhh forget it.

Charnel: You are too burdened by conscience to be of any use to me.

I'd argue I have less of a conscience than you. I'm working for everybody and pissing everybody off for the greater good...OF ME! Oh alright I'll fuck off.




Out of all 3 we're going to get ANOTHER Air unit. James wants to hurt Pyro, Persephone wants to hurt Charnel and Stratos is helping both: Providing a way through HIS territory to help Persephone get to Charnel as well as hurting Pyro.

THERE WE GO! Mission 4 COMPLETE! I need a drink. I've got visitors coming so I dont know if I'll be able to update again tonight, but I'll try to maybe get the next mission without the reaction up. Depending what time they leave.