Part 52: MOONSHADE - Fedabiblio Loosens Up A Little

Fedabiblio Loosens Up A Little



Arriving back in Moonshade to seek the Scroll of the Serpent, we bump into the apprentices.

"Oh good, the kids are alright. I was worried because as you are all well aware, children are our future."
"Unfortunately, both are male, which means this may be a rather short future."
"Yeah, well."
"Oh, am I glad to see thee! I have been very scared. The Glowing Man came and killed nearly everyone in the entire town. Fedabiblio tried to stop him, but not even he could withstand the Glowing Man's attack."
"Crap. He better not be dead already."
"Fedabiblio fought a terrific battle, but when the Glowing Man was done with him, he had been turned into a statue. It remains beyond mine abilities to restore him."
"Well, at least if he's a statue it might be possible to unpetrify him. Any idea how we could pull that off?"
"I do not know for certain if anything can bring Fedabiblio back to life. Once I overheard Columna talking about a special wand that Torrissio owned. 'Twas called the Philanderer's Friend. It enabled the user to command objects to move -- quite useful in thievery, I imagine. Perhaps it is a similar sort of magic that is required to enable Fedabiblio to move again. I know not if the wand is in Torrissio's possession, but perhap thou wilt be able to convince him to help thee. Be wary of him, however! He hath a reputation for being very tricky!"

And Freli is also here. Interestingly, he will continue giving you a scroll to take to his father even though is father is totally dead.

"I need thine help! I need thine help! I am in so much trouble..."
"What manner of trouble?"
"It was so terrible! Everyone is dead, and the city is destroyed... I was in the Seminarium when the Glowing Man came. Fedabiblio tried to stop him, but could not..."
"So we heard."
"He is dead, he is dead... The Glowing Man turned him into cold, cold stone. He is standing in the Seminarium... And I do not know how to change him back!"
"Did he ever mention anything about a Scroll of the Serpent?"
"I know that one! It is written entirely in Serpent Runic, and kept in the library of the Seminarium. Only Fedabiblio had the key. But now he hath been turned to stone!"

Guess we're stuck rescuing Fedabiblio then.



Although the mages of Moonshade are dead, they've conveniently left these brass chests in their manors which were previously not accessible. These contain the Serpent Teeth they stole from Erstam back in their day. Combined with the teeth Batlin had, and all the ones we already collected, our serpent jawbone will be nearly complete this update.



A sign of the rushed job of killing everybody: Some of the mages still have 'Magic Objects' on their person. These aren't supposed to be here because you're not meant to be carrying those around (although you can with Vibrate).



It's a little hard to see, but that's Filbercio dead behind the curtains. I can just imagine Shamino popping in on this little affair.



The teeth in Frigidazzi and Filbercio's manors don't fit into our jawbone. This is because they're duplicates of the pair found on the corpse in Vasculio's dungeon back in Skullcrusher. If you missed them there, you can get them here, or vice-versa. They're the only duplicate teeth in the game, so if you finish Moonshade with less than 2 missing teeth, you skipped one somewhere.



"Thou art alive! Thou hast survived the holocaust! So many are dead... Thy companion Shamino did return to this place, and he was in a killing rage. Despite all efforts to stop him, he did murder everyone in our town, save for Torrissio, Andrio and myself."
"Also Freli, Petra, Stefano, and Ernesto, but who's counting?"
"At least we've still got a master artisan around to sell us buckets."
"I have the talented hands that come from a long line of craftsmen. But I live in a world with no one but the dead to create for! A most funny joke, no?!"

Ducio is alive for a reason. He's plot required, in fact, although I can see why Shamino would leave him be. I'm not sure why Topo got killed though. You'd think the two of them would lay low while Shamino blew up all the mages.



Torrissio has left his tooth in his manor, but he's nowhere to be found. He definitely survived, so where could he have gone?



"Some good the Automaton Congress did for the place."
"Quite the contrary. We now comprise the ethnic majority of this city."
"That's crafty politics!"
"I am not certain that automatons can be considered an ethnicity, master, but perhaps it is best that we simply ignore them for now."
"Hey, have you guys seen Torrissio?"
"Actually, yes."



"I should have guessed you'd take the opportunity to move to a better house."
"Wouldn't thee, Avatar? Filbercio certainly shall not be using it! I am now the most powerful Adept in Moonshade."
"Well that's just fantastic, but look. Fedabiblio's kind of halfway dead, and I was wondering if you-"
"If thou dost think I will help thee, then the madness that hath seemingly infected the entire world hath also infected thy brain. I suggest thou dost have it removed."
"Well fuck you, we don't specifically need your help, but I was just looking for a wand you supposedly had."
"I perceive that thou hast the device stolen from me years ago. It is called the Philanderer's Friend -- I'm not sure why, but someday I shall understand its secrets. It is my rightful property and I shall have it back!"
"We do?"
"Steve, I think it was one of the items Vasculio stole!"
"Oh is that what that was?"



We'll go back to the base and grab the Philanderer's Friend in a second, but we've got a few more survivors to hear from. First up, Petra.

"Mine existence is pointless now, Avatar. Rocco -- my love -- is dead, and the Blue Boar destroyed. I am only an automaton, with no hope that any soul I may have will join Rocco in the world beyond this one. There is nothing left for me."

Also dead in here are Edrin and Hawk. Flindo's dead elsewhere in town, meaning his shop can pretty much be looted freely.

Note that sometimes the game bugs and Edrin and Ale appear at the same time in Moonshade. If this happens, Ale will survive the disaster, because he is immortal. If you were to somehow still have the cage and orb from Gustacio's experiment, or cheated them in, you might even be able to restore Edrin that way somehow.



The only ranger still alive is Ernesto, who is one of only a few NPCs with properly altered dialogue after the Banes are released:

"Shamino the Anarch is the current MageLord. He hath brought great change to our city... No longer must a Mage or Mundane be bound by petty rules. It is quite exciting!"

Indeed, this is a vestige of cut content where the Banes were supposed to "corrupt" their cities, rather than just flat-out murder them. Although most of the Adepts would be dead, most of Moonshade was supposed to continue functioning, with Shamino issuing depraved 'permits' for any imaginable activity.

The only part of this that really matters in terms of forgotten usecode is some dialogue Ensorcio has. You see, he wasn't supposed to die at the Sleeping Bull. In fact, he was meant to survive and return to Moonshade at Shamino's invitation:

"Seest thou, Avatar? I told thee that I would teach them not to take Ensorcio lightly! I told thee that one day they would welcome me back... Beg for me to return!"
"What do you mean you were 'welcomed' back?"
"Filbercio's unjust rule hath been brought to an end! Shamino the Anarch, thy wonderful companion, hath cast him from power and I have been welcomed with open arms! Oh, what joy! To be back in Moonshade and free to experiment as I wish! Shamino the Anarch hath proclaimed me the finest of Adepts! At last someone hath seen my talents and set them for the world to see... No more shall I be Ensorcio the shunned, Ensorcio the exile! Now I am the premier Adept!"

Now we just need to deal with a dangling plot thread, and find Stefano. This is easiest to do at night, when he goes home to sleep:



"In fact, I think that I will stay close by thee -- that will be safest for me!"
"What's been going on with you lately? I mean I can guess."
"A terrible, glowing being came to Moonshade, and battled against all of the Mages! I believe them to be dead... I did not stay to be sure, but came here to hide myself. 'Tis the end of the world, Steve!"

By "did not stay" I assume he means he was supposed to relocate to his cabin in the woods, but he often just runs around town or his manor, so clearly he wasn't hiding very well.

"This all started with a piece of work I did for the late MageLord, which involved procuring some stockings... 'Tis a long story, but to be brief, Columna the Green Witch hated me for what I did. She is dead now, but her curse lives on."
"A curse has been placed upon you, Mr. Stefano?"
"Oh, it's them again. Tell me you haven't kept them around since I left."
"No, this was just an emergency thing. So about Columna's curse."
"I'd spit on her grave, if she had one, the hag! From the depths of some hell, she hath summoned up a tireless warrior to pursue me! 'Tis a Death Knight, whose sole purpose is to slay the victim he is promised. Columna pledged my soul to this one. Surely, thou canst save me! Slay him for me, and thou shalt have my most priceless reward!"
"Alright, so how do we do that?"
"Well, I don't know how to kill him. I only know that he is very, very tough. Mayhap immortal."
"Perhaps nothing can stop a Death Knight."
"Don't let me discourage thee from making the attempt to slay the thing. My life depends on it, friend!"
"And what do I get out of this, Stefano?"
"Well, thou dost see, I have this item which might interest thee. In fact, I think it belongs to thee. I suspect one of those magic storms brought it my way. If I was an honorable man, I suppose I'd give it to thee straight away. But I'm not. So if thou canst kill the Death Knight, the Rock Serpent is thine. If not... And do not think of killing me and taking the Serpent. I have it well hidden."

I always loved this line. Stefano knows damn well that the Blackrock Order Serpent belongs to the Avatar, and he's perfectly willing to give it back, but given his current circumstances he has no problem exploiting the fact to stay alive. Not that I wouldn't do the exact same thing in his position, especially since the Avatar could actually help.

"Where is this death knight?"
"Wish I knew. He doth charge at me when I least expect it. Sometimes he appears from thin air!"
"We'll keep an eye out, I suppose."
"Wait. I almost forgot about this... Found this object when I happened to be passing through one of the manors, if thou knowest what I mean... Let me give this to thee, as a token of my great esteem for thine ability to save my life. It looks to be one of the Serpent Teeth that Mad Erstam used to collect."

Much earlier in the thread someone mentioned that Stefano was nearly impossible to locate if he had an Invisibility Ring on before he left you in Freedom. This is true, and your only real hope is to either track him down in his bed and pray that Reveal works, or F2 console and change his Invisible flag to 'N'o. If that fails, you'll have to get the Order Serpent back through beach trickery at the beginning of the game or by hackmoving the door of his woodshed.



Fortunately the whole Death Knight thing is pretty underwhelming. After Stefano brings it up, it appears and attacks him in a couple seconds. He targets Stefano almost exclusively, but even if he manages to kill him, you can just finish off the death knight and use the Hourglass to resurrect Stefano (remember, he counts as a companion). He doesn't care as long as the Knight dies.



"If I were not quaking with fear, Steve, I would go down on both knees before thee. I am so grateful for thine aid."
"Heh heh. Gross."
"I thank thee a thousand times over for saving my life, Avatar! There is no way for me to repay thee, but something I possess might be of use to thee on thy quest. This is the key to the vault behind mine old house, which is west of the city. With it, thou wilt be able to retrieve the cursed Rock Serpent that hath caused me such trouble. Take it with my blessings!"
"You couldn't have brought it with you or anything, could you. Alright, fine, fine."
"Thou hast but to look within the vault behind mine old house, Steve. I will not touch it again. It hath brought me enough bad luck... I am not a bold adventurer like thee, Avatar. I have no need of such things, but I am sure that thou wilt find it useful. And I thank thee once again for saving my life. I shall never forget thee."



Alright then! Remember this place? The stump was the teleport to the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader cheat room. This is Stefano's little retreat in the forest.



And in his little shed out back, the Blackrock Order Serpent, finally.



Now we have all three of them, which in addition to looking cool are necessary to beat the game. Hooray!



Also in Stefano's house is some loot, which would be handy if anyone were alive to spend it on.



Meanwhile, it's back home to pick up the Philanderer's Friend, the white and green wand we jacked from Skullcrusher.



Okay, hopefully you get the joke with the wand by this point, and why it can restore Fedabiblio.

If you don't:  it's a wand made to assist with... certain dysfunctions in which things are not moving when they should be .



"A thousand thanks! I had feared that I would remain an adornment of this place forever, thanks to Shamino the Anarch. So good to see that the Anarch hath not yet slain thee, Avatar. How may I be of aid?"
"Why did Shamino do this to you, anyway? I always thought you were pretty cool."
"The first thing that thy monstrous companion did when he came into town was oust the MageLord and the Council of Mages. When they resisted his edicts, Shamino killed them! Thou wouldst not believe it, Avatar! The Anarch simply deflected all their spells... They had no effect at all. The Rangers became his instruments of chaos... Anything was allowed, as long as one held a 'permit' from the Anarch. I do not know how many of us are left now. It seems that most of the manors are abandoned..."

Fedabiblio's dialogue is mostly unchanged from the vision of what post-Banes Moonshade was supposed to be. Of course, he also provides a simple explanation for what happened to kill everyone: Those Shamino didn't kill realized the rules were off and killed each other, leaving Torrissio the last man standing.

"Many of the Mages fell to the Anarch's wild justice. Others fell to the unorthodox magic of their fellow Mages. And I found myself in the lamentable position thou didst find me in for NOT using Death spells! I tried to save Captain Hawk from the Anarch, but my powers were not sufficient. As he lay dying, Hawk gave me this key. He said that it unlocked his sea chest at the Blue Boar Inn, and that the contents might be helpful someday. As I think the key might be useful to thee, I am giving it to thee."

The key opens Captain Hawk's chest, but you can Vibrate it off him and steal the map earlier, which we did.

"So then, who is left?"
"The last I knew, before I earned the Anarch's ire, Stefano was alive... though he was being pursued by some fell creature. Ducio yet lived. As did Torrissio. And I can only pray that Andrio and Freli escaped the notice of that monster!"
"Why did you bring up that the manors are mostly abandoned?"
"It might not seem virtuous, but I would suggest that thou shouldst explore the empty manors for magical scrolls and other items which might be of use in thy quest. For instance, thou couldst perchance assemble a near-complete set of the fabled Serpent Teeth -- It was a coup to steal such an artifact from old Erstam, but now the trophies lie abandoned in the mansions... I know not what the powers of the Teeth might be, but they might reveal their secret to thee. But beware of the automatons!"
"Way ahead of you, Fedabuddypal."
"At any rate, thank thee for saving me. Now that I am no longer imprisoned within stone, I can continue my researches. There must be some way to stop Shamino the Anarch!"
"We seek the Scroll of the Serpent, sir."
"The ancient scroll? Be warned -- it is written entirely in the ancient runes of the Daemons who once dwelt in this land. I can understand none of it. It is said that Erstam translated portions of it, but the translation was lost many years ago. As a token of my gratitude, please accept this, the Scroll of the Serpent."

With Fedabiblio restored, the apprentices are also quite happy:

"I am glad thou wert able to successfully deal with Torrissio, without him getting the best of thee!"
"Thou art a Mage beyond compare, Avatar! I thought that Fedabiblio was dead after the Glowing Man turned him into a statue. I had no idea how to change him back... I hope Fedabiblio rewarded thee richly for saving him!"

Alright then, let's check out this scroll...



"What the hell? This is the exact same scroll I found in the cave at the very start of this idiotic quest! I could have told Karnax all of this nonsense weeks ago!"

But for some reason the scroll you found on Drogeni doesn't work. Oh well, at least we've got this one.



"Hast thou returned with the scroll?"
"You got it."
"Very good! Now, if I may see it, I may be able to unlock the secret to restoring thy lady friend."
"We'll wait."

Soon...

"I have it now. It all becomes clear! The Ophidians based all their beliefs on six virtues. And the consequences of an imbalance of these virtues are very dire... In fact, it sounds as if they could destroy the world!"
"I've already figured most of this out, but go on."
"The virtues are: Tolerance, Ethicality, Enthusiasm, Discipline, Emotion and Logic. The anti-virtues -- when there is no balance -- are: Amorality, Wantonness, Insanity, Prejudice, Apathy, and Ruthlessness. I will draw thee a chart, so that it might be more clear."

For some reason the script says "amorality" when the Bane is clearly meant to be called Anarchy. Also of interest: Although the Banes of Order do not exist (because the Order Serpent was never divided), you could argue the three cities before the Banes represented the opposite extremes. Monitor was apathetic toward the Goblin threat (the knights largely cared about their own pride), Fawn was prejudiced against the ugly and those who challenged the Temple's rule, and the mages of Moonshade were ruthless in their rivalries. The Banes of Chaos showing up just flipped things around to the other extreme.

Or perhaps they added their own twisted sense of balance?

"So what are the consequences of being out of balance?"
"For the world, well... Eventually the world will destroy itself... Much like what is happening now. Within a person, like thy friend Gwenno, the lack of Discipline would produce Wantonness... Much like the behavior she is exhibiting now. There does seem to be a cure, however. According to this, thou shouldst have the victim drink the water from the temple dedicated to that virtue which the person lacks. It sounds as though thou shouldst bring water from one of the temples... I think that Miggim doth have a book with maps of those ancient temples."



"Guess we gotta go to the Temple of Discipline then! Hey Gwenno."
"Blood! I must have blood!"
"I hear that. Anyway, somebody go and - carefully - get that Ophidian book from the shelf behind Gwenno."

~~ ~~ TEMPLES OF ORDER~~ ~~
by Shrithos

Pilgrims, it is a great journey to visit the three Temples of Order. Do not let the obstacles sway thee from thy destination, for though the path is difficult, the rewards are many.

Seek the Fountains, for their Water is the essence of the Force which resides at that sanctuary. Imbibe the Waters, and drink of the fruit of thy quest.

The Temple of Ethicality is found near the coast, south of the Spinebreaker Mountains. It was built in such a way that those who come here may gain inspiration from the view. This is the first Temple on the Pilgrimage of Order.

Continue next to the Temple of Discipline. The western branch of the Spinebreaker Mountains is where the Temple of Discipline was carved out. Seek the great bay, then follow the eastern coast until thou dost reach the mountains. Continue east, and thou shalt be sure to find the entrance.

Lastly, the Temple of Logic lies within the Glacier Mountains, with the entrance being in the southern tip of the mountain chain. There are many passageways until one finds the Tests of Logic which lead to the sanctum.

Above all, do not mistake any Temple of Chaos for one of the sanctuaries of Order, for in this path lies Madness. Only Order is fit for study; chaos defiles all it touches.



"Fortunately, thanks to our nearly full set of Serpent Teeth, I'm pretty sure we can just warp to the Temple of Discipline."



"Wouldn't that require us to know where the Temple of Discipline actually is, and which pathway leads there?"



"Yeah, yeah, bitch and whine, that'll help us find it. Now then, I think we want... red-yellow-blue-yellow-white. Or something."



"You see? I managed to find a temple. I'm pretty sure, with all these logic puzzles, that we must be in the Temple of Discipline."
"Oh lord."
"What?"
"Nothing, master."