Part 77: Governor Boris and the Adventures in Blowing People Up
Governor Boris and the Adventures in Blowing People UpWelcome back! Last time on Tyranny we stopped the Disfavored's evil plan to blight the land and killed the Archon of Stone. Today we're going to ruin Graven Ashe's whole career in a completely different manner!

Octave has some stuff to say to us.


Bold words for a guy who didn't know stone magic until an hour ago.
It's also notable that the Scarlet Chorus Fatebinder - and you are deeply immersed in the Chorus at this point - is just going along for abusing subordinates now. If you're not getting that the Chorus changes you more than you change the Chorus, you're missing the entire point of this route.

Of course, Octave has to take it, but it's still kind of a shitty thing to say.




TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
: Thanks for the help! Now we can stop starving! Oh, by the way, good luck with Nerat, because he can turn on you on a dime.
: Now how the hell did those idiots kill Cairn with their own ritual?
: I could explain it, but you're too dumb to understand.
: Heh, no worries. Grab one of those Cairn pieces and put in a good word with the boss, will you? Oh, and if you need a sidekick I accept sick loot in exchange for doing violence on your behalf!

We get these convos again. Now, at this time I grab the strength amulet, claim the last two spires, and set up some research and forges offscreen. We've seen it before so I'm skipping it.

Along the way, we get jumped by a bunch of angry Disfavored and kill them.

Back to the plot! Poor Hundred-Blood has been skinned and used as a chair. We are responsible for all of this. We have not changed the Chorus. Matthias tried and look where it got him.

All we've achieved is enthroning Nerat. Good job Boris!









Rhogalus wants to know about killing Cairn, so we give him an honest description. I'm pretty sure the other two options read as a threat to Tunon and violating the will of Kyros, respectively.

The Fifth Eye is here to help us instead of our Fatebinder friend.



















Oh, and now that Amelia's dead the only way to end that Edict is to kill the baby.

Because we didn't decide to go to the Library we missed that Edict as well. Oops! Anyway, if there are still Edicts left over you didn't break you can't cast an Edict on that area.


Fifth Eye kind of has a point that there's a legion of fascists outside waiting to kick our ass.






By siding with the Scarlet Chorus, we are actually weaker than in the Anarchist playthrough as we have one and only one Edict to deal with the situation. We could have had Fire as well to be fair, and we can research Malediction in Act 3.

Marlowe's Faustus posted:
I see there's virtue in my heavenly words:
Who would not be proficient in this art?
How pliant is this Mephistophilis,
Full of obedience and humility!
Such is the force of magic and my spells:
No, Faustus, thou art conjuror laureat,
That canst command great Mephistophilis:
Quin regis Mephistophilis fratris imagine.
Earlier in the game posted:
: But here, the answer is given to us by the Overlord's own sense of posterity. Year 0 of Kyros' calendar is said to correspond to the day Kyros went from warlord to wearer-of-many-crowns - a victory won when the first Edict of Storms shocked both the Cloud Barons and the Realm of Medrev to capitulate.
This is extremely subtle as most players are going to be focused on THE POWER or the army outside the door, but this is the point where the player character accepts damnation. The entire game the Fatebinder has used the system to survive and gather power, and in this route especially has sacrificed their integrity and loyalty on behalf of the Voices of Nerat to gain less than they would have gained on their own.
Nevertheless, whether you form an alliance with the loyal boyars, the fascist army, the insane trauma indoctrination show, or the secret police running interference so you can legitimize yourself as the Monarch Of The Totally Real Unified Tiers, you're still working within the system Kyros designed, and thus you're railroaded into seeking more and more power. What else are you going to do? Hide? Take a boat and gamble on another continent like Occulted Jade? There is no America to flee to because all is Kyros.
It's brilliant. The game railroads the players into crossing the final line while making it seem like a great and cool idea that is born out of necessity. The Disfavored aren't even attacking you, they're attacking your powerbase which as far as I can tell has 3 dudes in it who have access to an escape teleporter. On some level the Fatebinder wants this kind of power, otherwise they would never have gotten this far in the Kyrosian hierarchy. Remember, every Fatebinder, no matter how well intentioned, opens the game by dropping an Edict on an area, which either burns people alive or slowly petrifies them. The cruelty is the point.



The Fifth Eye is not stupid. This can - and will, if you make the choice to do so - cause an apocalyptic hellwar so two egotistical assholes can play Dictator Theater.



As before, we exit the tower to a scene of devastation.

Marlowe's Faustus posted:
FAUSTUS. Where are you damn'd?
MEPHIST. In hell.
FAUSTUS. How comes it, then, that thou art out of hell?
MEPHIST. Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it:
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells,
In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss?
O, Faustus, leave these frivolous demands,
Which strike a terror to my fainting soul!

The Disfavored run the fuck away.

Aww, that's cute, he thinks he has a shot in hell.


I will never not take the Lore option here.





It's Tyranny combat. The only thing different here is that we have Fifth Eye and a Blood Chanter helping us out. It's on easy baby difficulty, though the only thing that would really change is how many times I have to click the launch CC button on the mages.



TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
: Hey, check out my sick throne! You did this, you elevated me to this position while I didn't change SHIIIIT! You could have gotten all the Spires and power on another route, dumbass! Anyway, what's up?
: Cairn is entombed now! Because I killed him!
: Nice! Now we can grow a ton of food to support a massive army! Anyway, the Disfavored are attacking your Spire so maybe you should go deal with that.
:
: Well I brought my crew to help out but that's a lot of Disfavored. Do you have a plan?
: Use the Edict, Boris....use it...
: I'm gonna drop an Edict on these motherfuckers!
: I will bet every single Kyrosbuck I own that you can't actually do that.
: What can I do...looks like I can hit any area where an existing Edict isn't.
/
: Do you accept damnation? Will you become as Kyros? Will you wield the power of fear and cruelty to preserve your own worthless life, just so you can spend every day doing it again, and again, until human suffering means nothing to you, as long as you can maintain your wealth and privilege?
: Yup!
/
: The pact is struck.
:
: HOLY GODDAMN SHIT! Anyway, those losers are in complete disarray so let's kill em all!
: Ha ha! I don't know what bullshit you learned from Cairn, but I will stab you to death now.
: That was an Edict fool. Think very carefully about your next actions.
: Ha ha! That wasn't an Edict, right guys?
: Holy fuck we're all going to die
: Charge!
:
: That ruled! Me and the guys will clear out the rest of the courtyard, and you can watch those idiots run away! This is the best day EVER!

I love this art and wish there was more of it.


The game unfortunately doesn't make a big deal about this, but there are also a ton of civilians who live in the valley and probably lost homes and lives as well. Of course, it's highly likely that's not something our Fatebinder cares about, because to get as far as we have we've had to deal in slaughter and torture just to survive this horrible system.


The dialogue with Calio is the same. I tell her we're not using the Edicts frivolously, because we have a limited power bar and we just uncursed the region we need to feed our "allied" army. We get a bit more because we're allied with the Scarlet Chorus.

I have a much better plan than assaulting Iron Hearth, and I think Nerat will love it too.

I'm sure we're still totally useful and Nerat isn't planning to betray us.


Yea we're totally fucked.

This is, at least, good advice.
TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
: Hey, before you attack the Disfavored, please go see Nerat. He's not planning to...actually, buddy, be careful!

Rhogalus replies to our earlier message, and we get a new missive.

If we had Favor 3, we could arrange a duel in Ashweald. This skips the Archon trial as Tunon is pissed, so we're not going to do that. We'll be polite instead.
My guess as to what Mark is thinking here is that you are not nearly as useful to him because you fell in with Kyros' schemes - and his end goal is to get rid of Kyros, Nerat, and Ashe because they're all soulless monsters with no principles.
Of course, he falls into the same trap the player does and uses the weapons of the tyrant to become the tyrant.

On to the Bastard City...next update.