Part 15: Sweet Jesus Make The Hurting Stop

Last time on Stygian, Cthulhu made his contractually obligated appearance because it's a Lovecraft game!



Today we do some stupid, stupid shit. Also we have a weird creature (no, not an intersex person) that proudly shows off its dick and vagina combo and talks about how that makes it closer to God, so, uh, don't read this one at work, kids!

Anyway, as you may remember from last update, we need to research the Nightwalk spell because the Baroness deposited it into our head but somehow we didn't learn it because the developers presumably spent three weeks trying and failing to create an "addSpell" function that wasn't hardcoded to a manuscript object.



Failing to find meaning through pornography is something many teenagers can relate to.



Oh, can we buy "Tears of a Memory", you ask. No. We don't have it in our inventory, we're gonna have to do some stupid shit and some moderately interesting sequences ruined by the Stygian devs' complete and utter inability to write functional code.



Incidentally we can talk to Stanley's brain. We don't need it, but I'm going to hang on to it so he can escape with us and maybe we can build him a robot body or use magic or something, idk. This is not an option you can offer him because that would be interesting.

I go back to the Pilgrim's Parish.



The combat itself isn't interesting, but I do disprove my earlier theory!



I try to drop a Children of Pazuzu on these three bunched up cultists. It fails again. It fails SO HARD, in fact, that the game doesn't allow me to have Bertha attack for the rest of this fight.



The game glitches when we get back to Pilgrim's Parish. The cultists dropped not actual robes, as I thought, but robe fragments - and we need the cultist robes to get past the guy at the door because the Tears of a Memory are in the theater.



If you have high science you can talk this guy into giving you his cultist robes. Unfortunately, we don't.



: MAYBE I LIKE TO BE ONE OF THE POINTY HOODS LIKE THOSE KUKU GUYS BUT LESS BORING I SUPPOSE???

ha ha



What the fuck is this word salad?





: YOU ARE OVERESTIMATING THIS SANITY THING MISTER!

I really can't think of anything I haven't said about these "hilarious" insanity dialog inserts.



Notice how we don't actually define "sanity" anywhere? I get that it's the 1920s but shit, bring up Freud or somebody! None of the mental illnesses as portrayed in the game match up to real diagnoses anyway, it's kinda nuts!

: What's bothering you?

: (Fretfully adjusts his glasses) You mean myself? (A shadow falls over his sullen face) I've already given up on everything... The years of my spell in the university...



: University? I'm intrigued.



: PHYSICS? WOOOO THAT EXPLAINS THE GLASSES

Just insert something from earlier in the LP about the tonal clash.

: I'm no one to be wondered about. I always had a curious mind and a trace of credulity, so it was no surprise finding myself in an esoteric circle called Intelligentia at the university. This was before the Black Day.



UUUUUUGH! Asenath Waite is yet another reference, to The Thing on the Doorstep of all things. Poor Asenath is one of the few women Lovecraft writes, where she's a creepy sorceress lady at a school who marries a man. Surprise, she turns out to be a fish lady possessed by her father who is trying to brain swap with the guy because men's brains are better at magic (this is Lovecraft, remember). In practice this is another reference to get all the Lovecraft nerds clapping like trained seals.

: Then why don't you resign?



Can YOU find the typo?



How the fuck did this guy become a physicist when he can't string together a coherent sentence?



I don't know where he gets this, either! There's clearly more here than just Arkham. Did he find the edge of the world or something?



: I disagree. There must be a scientific explanation we're not aware of yet.



: If this is indeed part of the known universe, than fundamentals of deduction may still apply.



Just showing off more typos.

TheGreatEvilKing summarizes this garbage posted:

: You should get out because the cult hates non cultists.

: I WANT TO BE A CULTIST I AM CRAY CRAY HA HA ISN'T THIS FUNNY

: I am sad, because all these cultists are insane but I am sane and that makes me very sad. Let me spout off deepities about consciousness.

: I'M INSANE WOOOOOOOOOOO!

: Noo I am still sane!

: Who are you, anyway?

: I used to be a physics professor at the university, but because I was stupid I joined a cult there led by a Lovecraft reference. Then we all came here, and I have ABANDONED SCIENCE! ONLY GOD CAN KEEP THE GRAVITY ON! ONLY A GOD COULD MAKE BREATHABLE ATMOSPHERE!

: Um...so, if I still believe in science, can I get a cult robe?

: HA HA YOU ARE STUPID FOR BELIEVING IN SCIENCE! Now go, I must be emo now.

What a waste of time.



This is the other way to get the robe, just grab it from this strangely Christian cult ceremony next to the dude being whipped.



You have to use stealth or else the cultist whips you. Now Bertha, being a sex wizard, is all about that shit, but I actually want to finish this game so I can uninstall it forever, so I grab the robe off screen.



Back to the doorman.



: How did you come to join our ranks, brother?



: How can I forget, brother?

: Then I started hearing the word... The word of the High Priest, that he started the Hallowed March and numerous illiterates were trailing along after him and his Sheiks. I was curious and had nothing to lose, sister.

: (Tears come to his eyes) You know the rest. He showed me how worthless I was, under the shadow of the Old Ones. I'd always been! The falsity that was my former life had never been whole! Fractured! Always had been!



Oh look! It's what the cult chanted in The Call of Cthulhu! Clap, seals! Clap! Lovecraft! Yay! You read Lovecraft? Yay! Clap! Yay!

Now, the chant actually translates to "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming" and Cthulhu is running around Arkham, so why the fuck are we chanting this now? In a better game this would show that even the cultists are ignorant, but this game has no sense of thematic or internal consistency, so who knows.



Suddenly despite never having heard of Cthulhu while being an initiated occultist who could do actual magic, we can use Occult to chant perfectly.

: Ph'nglui mglw'ath Cthulu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn (Occult)



See what I mean about this game having no internal consistency? First we've never heard of Cthulhu, and then suddenly we're familiar with his cult's secret chant that we used to hear all the time. It's kind of nuts!



Is this a hint that we're intrigued by joining the cult?

: Likewise, brother.



: I'm here to visit the Theater of Bones.

: (From his attitude, you can see he is carefully weighing your words) You have zeal, sister, and that is good... yet I can't help but wonder, have you truly submitted your blood and soul to the Cult?



: Mark of Cleansing?



: I'll show it to you when I return. Goodbye, brother.



Anyway, because we needed some padding we gotta go back to our buddy Krogh.



: Do you know anything about the Mark of Cleansing?

: (With an expression of misery, Krogh glances over the strange scars on his body before answering) Do I know about them? I have hundreds on my body!

(Returning to his invisible ally) Barzal Tharg, sometimes I suspect you persuaded me not to kill her as some kind of cruel joke.

: (Still disgruntled, he explains) The mark is the Cult's way of separating you from your past and everything that you once held dear. Initiates usually get one or two scars.

: In rarer cases, if the Sheiks suspect the initiate is resisting the indoctrination, they may inscribe more. (Drops his head with frustration) I'm sure I hold the record though.



: I need to get inside the Arkham Theater.



: I need to get the mark.

: Well, well. I've had it myself so many times I'm sure I can perform the ritual, but you ought to prepare yourself both physically and mentally before we begin.



: I'm ready, Krogh.

: You think so? I don't think one can ever be completely prepared for such a violation, but let's suppose you are. Now, if you want this to work, listen and absorb my every word from now on.

: Right before the cleansing ritual, you should choose something from your former life that you are deeply attached to. Something that has turned into a weakness, a liability in this new age.

: Target the emotion that holds you back most. Let's supposed that you miss your late mother. According to the Cult's creed, you can't be free of your shackles without purging that feeling.

Weirdly, the cult in Lovecraft was all about surrendering to emotion with animal yells and shit, but what do I know?

: If you're attached, you remain a selfish slave to yourself. Look deep inside your persona and find that emotion. Locate that glass room that will shatter with the gentlest touch.



What the hell is a child-liege? Also, I probably should have had a vote on this but it doesn't really matter. Note that despite being a psychopath we can give up love, compassion, and friendship.

: Longing. I deeply miss the bygone times of my life.

: (The former cultist takes out a piece of iron and holds it in the flame of a ritual candle while his whispering assumes a resolute but monotonous pace)

: The past is a bed of thorns, child. You'll stay the prisoner of sorrow so long as you cling to the obsolescence of your former self. Cleanse yourself and be reborn as a thrall of the Old Ones.













: I don't like that look on your face.

: I can't count how many times I had to go through this, always as the victim, always as the cleansed. When you came to me voluntarily, asking for this, something in me just ticked.

: Then it made sense. I understood the guilty pleasure of a father beating his own son in return for the beating he got from his own father. What can I say? For once I had the chance to make someone feel like I did.

Turn back, Stygian writers! You're not good enough!



This ends the conversation. I check his inventory but there's nothing useful.



Back to the cultists!



Ok, fine, what time wasting bullshit do you have for us now?

: You realize that one of the whispers is addressing you directly. "Oh, look how it shackles you. The pain... No pleasure, no goods, no scheme or shortcut can free you. Bow to your mistress, pain!"

Wow it's so grim and dark, wow.



At this point the game's attempts at horror only elicit frustration for wasting my time.



Yes, it's very spooky, WoOoOoOoOo!



ANOTHER WASTE OF TIME RANDOM ENCOUNTER! So, what happens if we run around?



Bonus points for having the subtitle be "angst obtained". What a waste of time.



Same dialog as before.

: (Uncover your chest and show your mark of cleansing)

: (With a peculiar look of satisfaction in his eyes, the hooded man examines the esoteric wound which is still tingling on your chest) You said farewell to longing, my fellow Cleansed?

: I'm honored... (He opens up his chest to uncover a purplish scar that has an identical pattern to yours) We never really had anything after all. Why miss the Will-o-the-wisps of the past?

This feels like it should be thematic, but it ties into literally nothing else in the game. I have no idea why Krogh is talking about the cycle of abuse because, again, it ties into nothing in the game.

: (The cultist steps away from the entrance) You should be ready for the revelation within, sister. Go and witness our beautiful doom!

Remember how we have a Cthulhu statue, and these cultists worship Cthulhu? Did we ever get the option to present them with our sweet statue? The answer is no, because the quest to investigate the Cthulhu statue is literally unfinished and we can never complete it. What a waste of time.

TheGreatEvilKing Presents: Stygian Abridged posted:

: Hey, look, I have cultist robes! I'm a cultist now!

: Man, that rules. I used to be a loser, but now I'm a cultist! Want to do a Lovecraft reference chant?

: Cthulhu! Woohoo! Woohoo, for Cthulhu!

: Can I get into the theater?

: You do seem like a pretty good cultist. Can I see your mark of cleansing?

: My what now? Oh, BRB, gotta go get one. Hey, Krogh, do you know anything about the Mark of Cleansing?

: Yes. I have hundreds, that's what all these tattoos are. The cult tattoos its initiates to give up some portion of their humanity in a way that would be thematic, but unfortunately was written by the Stygian devs. Why do you ask, you're not a cultist are you?

: I gotta get into the theater of bones, can you hook me up?

: Yes, I can do the ritual. What are you giving up, child-liege?

: Uh...my longing I guess?

: In the name of Great Cthulhu I brand these old lady titties.

: Krogh, what the fuck, why do you look turned on? I'm the creepy sex wizard, you can't steal my thing!

: At first, I was abused like this at the hands of the cult. Now, I am the abuser! I understand now, the cycle of abuse...something that has never come up in this story and probably won't again.

: Hey, cult brother, can I get into the theater now?

: Take your shirt off! AWWWW YEEEEAH! That's the same brand I have! Also old lady boobs I guess. You can go in, and if you go insane that would be awesome!

Brace yourselves.



This is going to shock you, but the next segment is going to have effective storytelling.



There's some good loot here, if we needed more Cigs for whatever reason.



See that cultist in the front sitting down? That's Bertha, and that's what we need to do to proceed.

The camera pans up, we fade to black, pan down and...



Flashback zone!



And here I've already fucked up. How? Keep reading.



: Hello, darling.

If you're a man you can kiss her hand.



: I am Bertha. A pleasure.

: The pleasure is mine, madam. Looks like you're attending the event all by yourself. I can't help but envy you.





: I'VE SEEN HOW YOU LOOK AT THOSE PEOPLE AND YOU ARE DAMN RIGHT THEY ARE WEIRD THEY ARE COLORLESS DULL UNACCEPTABLE!



: I am.

: I see. Well, thanks for your kindness, madam. I am Amelia Ensworth. (She bows gently before looking back at the distant spot she seems to prefer to the most exquisite people of Arkham).



: May I ask who that person might be?

: (Her eyes search for someone in the crowd first. When she starts talking again, you get the impression the person she was looking for is nowhere nearby) I prefer to keep his name to myself, madam.



It's Chad the shaman! I love the way the guy who literally has a beautiful wealthy woman pining over him is named "Chad".

: Has he passed away?



: Someone dear, you say...



: I'm not here to judge anyone, Amelia. You can be honest with me.

: (Amelia remains silent. Together, you look at the guests laughing, chatting, boasting, flirting among themselves, unaware of the inevitable awaiting them on the doorstep...)

YES WE GET IT YOU READ THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP VERY CLEVER

: (You were slowly being hypnotized by the spectral humming of the crowd, when Amelia's gentle voice brought you back to your senses)



: Benedict was, and still is, good looking, educated, wealthy, everything a girl could ask for, maybe more. And I liked him, that's true, but... did I want a life with him? I wasn't really sure of that...



: I see.

: Tuberculosis took her... (She lowers her head) It's been three years. There hasn't been a single day since when I didn't feel the need for her guidance. So I decided to do something naive, even stupid.





: ON THE CONTRARY THE SPIRITS ARE ALWAYS HERE! MEET HARRY FOR EXAMPLE! HE'S BEEN DEAD FOR 14 YEARS CLOSE BUDDY OF MINE.

Tragic star-crossed love story or wacky madcap comedy? Make up your damn mind!

: To make a long story short, we became friends with the psychic I had hired to conduct this seance, a young Indian named Chad. Since the very beginning, his company made me feel at ease, at peace with myself.

: He was a bit withdrawn, yes, but was also thoughtful and perceptive. He always knew, and most importantly cared, for how I really felt. After a long while, in his presence, I was no longer in a contest.





Ugh, the "ailment known as distress". When I promised effective storytelling, I did not mean this. Wait a bit.

: OH-OH! CAUGHT!

: It was Mayor Anderson who learned about us. His driver had seen us strolling through the Willows. Arkham is no Boston after all.



Cthulhu! You give Cultic Games their editor back right this instant!



: Eugenics camp?

The eugenics movement was strong in the 1920s and did all kinds of barbaric things like sterilizing black people, Native Americans, and literally inspiring Adolf Hitler's bad ideas. Really! I have never heard of a eugenics camp though - most of the time, people were sterilized and released to remove them from the gene pool. Don't take this as a quick snip either - these procedures were horrible, invasive, and usually involuntarily based on the judgement of quacks with bad intelligence tests or condemning women who liked to have sex. The eugenicists were worthless monsters.

There's also the more likely outcome that Chad would probably just have been lynched or something, because people literally murdered Native Americans and got away with it back then. Read Killers of the Flower Moon, there was a whole scam going on where white people married into the Osage tribe, got declared legal guardians of the financials (because Native Americans can't handle money or some other racist idiocy) and then murdered their Native spouse to get at that sweet, sweet oil money. A better story would have us ask whether Mayor Anderson and the rest of the Arkham leadership were any better than the Mafia for doing all this eugenics bullshit. An even better story would tie this into the themes of the narrative. This, however, is Stygian.

: It's one of those barbarous places where they do horrible things to people they declare unfit for society. They say it is done to improve the health of society, but everybody knows the truth.

I'm pretty sure this is to invoke Nazi concentration camps, which is actually fair as the American eugenics movement was the foundation for all that garbage. Seriously, Hitler quoted that shit in Mein Kampf. (By the way, that's a link to a Guardian article, not Hitler's insane ramblings).



: Technology and civilization are very different things.





: WITH TEARS! SOMEONE'S HEART SHOULD HAVE BEEN SHATTERED!

We interrupt this Very Serious Narrative about Chad the Shaman being sterilized by proto-Nazis with Wacky Madness(tm)!



: (She desperately clings to your arm) I have a bad feeling about all this, madam... My heart has felt heavy throughout the night.



: That's good to hear.

TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:

: Damn, gurl, heyyyy!

: Uh, hi?

: I'm Bertha.

: Oh, wow, you're here all by yourself? That rules, I'm stuck with Virgin Benedict over here. Could you go away?

: ALL THESE OTHER PEOPLE SUCK WHICH I SCREAM OUT BECAUSE I'M CRAZY

: Oh, you're from Arkham? I'm Amelia Ensworth. I'm just sad because my acquaintance is gone.

: Did he die?

: No, he was an Abenaki Native American. You probably didn't know him. We met at a seance!

: Is that my boi Chad the Shaman?

: He was the only person who could see the real me.

: I'm not here to judge, Amelia.

: I was about to get engaged when I met him. The virgin Benedict was wealthy, educated, good looking, and more, and I kinda liked him, but didn't want to marry him. My father gave me his blessing because Benedict was the mayor's son, but I wanted to talk to my dead mother. So I hired Chad to do a seance to talk to my dead mother, then we fell in love. You probably think this is nuts.

: GHOSTS ARE REAL ALSO I AM INSAAAAAANE!!!!1!!!!!!

: Chad was the only one who saw the real Amelia, saw me as a person unlike that virgin Benedict. But then...

: LOL YOU GOT CAUGHT WHOOOOOOOP! damn, Chad is a player!

: Then the mayor caught us. He said that if I kept shaming his virgin loser son Chad would be sent to a eugenics facility and sterilized. Those terrible racist eugenicists, worthless barbarians!

: That is pretty barbarous.

: I had to tell Chad he was just a fuckboy! I told him he sucked! I had to or else they would give him to the eugenicists!

: HA HA WHOOP HISTORICAL ATROCITIES ARE THE BEST TIME FOR MADCAP WACKY MADNESS!!!! WHOOOOOOOP!

: I LOVED HIM! I LOVED CHAAAAD!

Reading that conversation just really shows how empty this game is. If you HAD to address Lovecraft's racism for some reason, you could actually do some kind of story from the view of someone oppressed in the 1920s - immigrant, black, Indian, whatever - and address Cthulhu sweeping away contemporary society from that lens. If you're constantly treated like a second class citizen raising Cthulhu from the depths to eat all the racists is...actually kind of plausible. You'd need actually good writing to tackle this, so Stygian could never do it, but the potential is there and it might make an interesting story.

Meanwhile, back to Stygian. Can you guess how I've fucked up?



After you talk to Amelia, a scripted event is supposed to fire where the Dismal Man runs in and starts showing the movie. Unfortunately because of the magical spaghetti code Stygian is built on, this doesn't fire unless you talk to the NPCs in the right order. It took me three reloads and looking up a video to figure this out.



First you talk to Hines here. He's the guy with the science option to build a suit to traverse the blasted street. He gets chewed out by his boss for being underdressed. Next!



This man is mad because of Prohibition and offers you some booze. If you drink with him he tells you the Chicago Mafia is going to come here to save everyone from sobriety and that Wax Face is leading them. The New England mafia is of course never mentioned.



NOW you can talk to Amelia.



Finally! The Dismal Man apparently visited Mayor Anderson but I guess the mayor thought it would be funny to send his son here or something.



: It is a privilege to host you...

: ...in this terrific event tonight.

: I hope you all enjoy this miracle of the century.





Now, watch as Stygian actually manages to be effective!



Old-timey movie countdown...



We cut to the bored audience.



The audience perks up suddenly.



Is that...



This guy is much smarter than his compatriots.



What the hell is going on?



If you had any doubts about whether the Dismal Man was Nyarlathotep, put them to rest. This is genuinely creepy.







The audience is starting to wonder what's going on.







And the angel blew the third trumpet.







The "real-world" audience starts freaking out.







Put your pants back on dude.











The once proud Arkham elite are reduced to mere beasts.



Meanwhile, in the "real Arkham" the elite sob in terror as their images tear each other apart.











This display of brutality sends the "real" audience over the edge.







The same scenes from the film play out in reality.



Panic!



Maggots! Uh...sure?



We get a cutscene of both sets of movie theaters fighting in parallel and the camera pans out to reveal...

H.P. Lovecraft, Nyarlathotep posted:

He spoke much of the sciences—of electricity and psychology—and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare. Never before had the screams of nightmare been such a public problem; now the wise men almost wished they could forbid sleep in the small hours, that the shrieks of cities might less horribly disturb the pale, pitying moon as it glimmered on green waters gliding under bridges, and old steeples crumbling against a sickly sky.

After showing theater watching theater watching theater the cursed reel ends.



What I'm about to say might shock longtime readers of this LP, but that cutscene was actually effective. I know, I should have recorded a video, but I was literally just as shocked as you are. Why is it effective? It presents horrifying images with an actual context and manages to evoke Lovecraftian horror - the fear of the unknown, the sudden mental breakdown - and hits hard because of the violent images and the inevitability of violence. The incompetent writers don't shit it up with garbage descriptions to have "good writing", and it actually ties in to our supposed quest to follow the Dismal Man and the foreshadowing at the beginning of the game. The player isn't annoyed by the constant pointless shoehorning of Lovecraft references, and the images speak for themselves in how horrifying they are. The violence depicted is sudden and brutal, but the scene generates suspense by showing the violence before it happens "in the real world", and the plot twist - that across multiple universes thousands of the theatergoers are damned to continue this fight - serves to highlight the power of Nyarlathotep and the frailty of the humans who try to resist him.



We can use the occult skill to destroy this zombie that is turning the film reel. That gets us...experience I guess?

Now, you might have a slightly better opinion of Stygian now. Let me ruin that for you. Remember how Amelia dramatically confessed that she really loved Chad the whole time? Well, we know Chad! He was at the Abenaki camp! Yea, Wjatal wanted to anime sword us to death, but surely he'll make an exception because we have important news for Chad, right?



Ha ha, player! The joke's on you! Chad's not at the camp! Wjatal's not at the camp! No one attacks us! It's completely pointless!

Fuckin Stygian, man. Let's reload to just outside the theater and go hop on the blasted street.



The way to proceed is to loot poor Amelia's corpse and steal her pearls - those are the "Tears of a Memory" we need to cast the stealth spell so we can progress the game.



BY THE POWER OF CHAD LET OUR SEX WIZARDRY WORK!



Nice! We can also sneak past most of these wacky mutants as the spell gives us a stealth bonus and we have a magic shadow that the game's graphics don't bother to depict.



Why not.



This happens periodically because it's a Color out of Space reference.



We get into a fight with these mutants. I realize I never set our stealth active.



Yea, not dealing with this.



Score! Yes, of course we can make cocaine in this game.



Unfortunately, my clever plan fails and we have to fight the mutants. They don't really do anything interesting. They spit acid and have a melee attack.



They have a few special moves that fail to save them from being surrounded by melee monsters and beaten to death.



I'm pretty sure these mutants don't drop anything good so we escape.



That's a pittance to us and we need another clubman on the death gauntlet. You're a good dude Eduardo.



I give Bertha a point in psychology instead of melee this level on the advice of the thread. Her new Slaughterous perk gives her more damage with heavy melee weapons like the sword she is wielding.

The Outsider and Nameless Soldier just get more investments into their schticks (melee, occult, and firearms). Nothing special.



The sheer terribleness of this analogy causes more sanity damage.



A house? What are we going to find inside?

By the way, stop reading if you're reading at work.



What the fuck? Put some pants on!



I am in no qualified to analyze the gender part of this so I'm just not going to do it.



Uh...



: You still preserve some form of consciousness in this form?

: I'm the one who was broken, now mended. I'm the one who was in conflict, now at peace. I'm the one who was divided, now whole. I'm the one who was two but became one.



I looked it up and this seems to be unique to this game? It's not a Kabbalah thing? What the hell is this?

: Why do you call me 'apostle'?



: How did you end up like this? What's going on in this street?!

: Once, I wasn't whole like this, to the shadows of purgatory. I was separated, living as two, as husband and wife. A couple with the fear of the Lord God in their hearts.

: They were clueless, scared, lost. Questioning, crying over why the Lord God had condemned them to this realm of eternal twilight. They read the holy book over and over, and pray through the endless, lightless days.



: I see.



"Hey, what does the Color out of Space need more of?"
"MUTANT CREATURES WITH THEIR DICKS HANGING OUT!"
"You're a genius! Good thing we fired that intern who made the Theater of Bones cutscene!"

: Right away, the godly light punished the ones who had no hope for salvation, scourged them to ashes and bones! (With both of its mouths, the creature hisses in disdain) Lonely, barren, self-seeking ones they were!

: Then the light embraced the others, embraced us! Ah, we felt all of the love of creation deep inside. It gave us the chance to be blessed as a whole, become the new favored of the Lord God, to populate this Garden of Eden.

Please don't go where I think you're going...

: But the others... As Adam and Eve did in the past, they all failed Him! Forsaking His path, they turned into blasphemeres[sic] thirsting for the bliss of the light sleeping under the earth. Only I remained faithful!



: So tell me what God has in mind for me.





: I know I'm going to regret this but... tell me more.



If you think "Cain and Abel but with dick mutants" is bad, just keep reading.

: Oh, Apostle of the Fallen! My son has sinned and I know that he will sin again, unless you bring him to me. Only you can dissuade him from the thorny path of the profane. I know there is salvation for him!



: I AM THE CHOSEN ONE AND I'LL SUCCEED IN MY QUEST CREATURE!



: Who are these Forsaken?



: How was Kabbal born, I wonder?

BERTHA

BERTHA NO



Stygian. NO. DO NOT DO THIS.



You can't make this shit up.



Really. This really made it into the game.



: I better go.

TheGreatEvilKing summarizes...whatever the fuck is going on. Please, someone make it stop. posted:

: Oh! The Apostle! She is but one, alone!

: Holy shit a talking dickmutant.

: I was once a man and a woman, but now I am one Hebrew-sounding word of God, here to redeem the sins of the world!

: Uh, apostle?

: Yes, you are the apostle, who is doomed but will save us all! I wasn't always like this. I used to be a husband and wife, but then the Color out of Space came and killed all the sinners and fused us together! I took it as a sign from God!

: Ok...

: Go find my son, he has wandered off to join the Forsaken after murdering his brother! It's like Cain and Abel but with dickmutants!

: The Forsaken?

: They sinned against God by trying to get close to His light.

: How do you have a son?

: Well, as a weird fusion of man and woman, I have a dick AND a vagina so I get really horny and then I can fuck myself! Not like that shitty love between two people, but fucking yourself is God's love!

: Uh, I'm out.

Next time: Yelling at dickmutants.