Last time, I explored Nal. Today, a quest!

Dehl wonders how it’s so obvious, and Ques makes a snide remark about them not being caked head to toe in mud. Wadassians really just look worse and worse as time goes on.

Apparently the guards didn’t hear it, because Ques immediately starts talking to them normally about wanting to help Nal etc. The guards are jaded and bitter and say the guild should go to the officers instead, since they run everything now. Dehl appeals to their sacred duty as defenders and presses, saying they must still know something that can be done for the city.

Nal-Guard: “Oh, don’t give me that look, Shra. If you really wanted to help, you should’ve come to Nal during the Blue Plague. Ehh.”

Ouch, that’s gotta sting. Dehl takes it pretty well, though, only barely missing a beat. He apparently gives them another…puppy dog stare or something: “Ughh, there’s that look again. I get the same one from one of our thralls. Those eyes.” The guard finally confesses that there’s something they can do.

Dehl: “Th-thank you, sir.”

Dehl has issues.

The problem is skeletons. “Every time it rains, even more of them start to appear.” Ooh, that’s some pretty neat foreshadowing. Anyway, the undead are menacing the clay-gatherers who travel to the swamps, and therefore need to be kept down.

Dehl: “I see. Why would there be skeletons in that place at all, however?”
Nal-Guard: “It’s a Human tradition. We bury our dead. The Mudlands is a popular place for this.”

Okay so this is pretty nitpicky, but I think it’s worth some discussion.

It seems like this is just taken as a given rather than having an actual explanation. Real life people bury their dead, therefore fantasy people do too, even if their religion and culture is completely different from ours. It can be pretty interesting to see fantasy cultures with different dues to the dead and how that ties into their beliefs. This is another thing that Unsounded did well. In that, there are two religions – one buries the dead to give the bodies back to the mother god, while the other cremates the dead so the bodies don’t decay. These are both reflections of their wider dogmas, allowing us to piece together how these people think and what they value. We don’t see any such thing here. Why do they bury their dead? Non-humans apparently don’t; why? Traditions don’t form without an underlying rationale.

For some reason I get this additional text box after accepting. I guess the developer was on the fence about how to format special objectives, and changed it for Nal?

I start with a cutscene, instead of being given free roam. The guard explains that I will never, in fact, be given free roam – I need to divide by party members into three groups, which will each travel along separate paths. I’m given a choice of how to distribute them – I can even pile all six into one group, though I’ll cover less ground that way.

Also know that there is no chance of rescue in a remote are such as this. Failure on all fronts means death for us all.

Ominous! I guess this is one of the few instances where you can get a real game over instead of an “let’s just pretend that didn’t happen” do-over?

The game seems to want me to use all three routes, so that’s what I do: Dehl + Lani, Zargos + Santes, and Fero + Qualstio. Except for Zargos and Santes, their damage abilities are pretty similar, so they should make good teams.

These guys are surprisingly tough. Their crushing attacks really hurt Lani, and Dehl’s slashing attacks are useless against their heavy armor. I got rather unlucky here, also, as both of them are cold-elemental, and therefore resistant to Dehl’s Spirit Crush.

Lani’s Phalanx Charge skill deals with them pretty well, though.

I’m not entirely sure why failing this is a death sentence? There are random guards just tagging along, I’m sure they could drag the unconscious bodies back to safety.

Zargos is useless here; Santes does all the work. She’s weak to crushing attacks, but the skeletons can only inflict soul damage, which she can tank.

Oh boy. After Zargos and Santes nearly got decimated, I’m more cautious this time. The skeletons have a special ability that inflicts cold soul damage, which would really hurt Qualstio – fortunately, Fero can take the hits, since fih’jik have good soul stats.

It goes on like this for a while longer. The guards say something slightly different each time, though, which is a nice touch.

I don’t remember whether or not there’s anything special if you get farther along a single path. The quest isn’t repeatable, so probably not; the developer tends to be nice about that.

Due to the guild’s assistance, they’ve garnered the trust of the Nal-guard and can be recruited for future services.

Ques: “Mmmph, yes, well, thank you Guardsman. Your generosity knows no bounds.”

Ques is a jerk. Qualstio sarcastically asks the group what they think of the place so far.

Santes: “I hate it. It’s wet, and I wanna go home.”

*sigh*

Dehl is boggled by the skeletons and wonders what caused them. Qualstio dismisses them as just another big old heaping stack of crap for this place to deal with.

Qualstio: “It’s really no wonder why our welcome has been less than stellar so far.”
Dehl: “Then we shall make our farewell a fine and memorable one to the people.”

Still suffering from bulletproof optimism I see. It must be pretty crushing to him how awful their “farewell” ends up being.

Suddenly, the guardsman looks over his shoulder, gulps, and makes a hasty excuse to leave. When he gets to the T-junction, he looks north briefly before running surprisingly fast for a guy in full plate. Qualstio snarks a bit, then Fero notices someone’s coming.

These guys have a neat leitmotif. It’s a nicely menacing industrial track – fairly simple, but it gets the job done.

There is a pause as the shra looks the guild over.

Ques says they’re a Wadassian guild, and asks who he is. He introduces himself as Skint. Scourgelord Skint, of the Scourge Clad. …No one reacts to this. Shouldn’t the name or at least the title be really well-known? He implies as much later on. Sort of a ‘guild,’ as you call it. “Sort of”? What’s that supposed to mean? They don’t really have anything in common with the guilds. I wonder if guilds are unique to Wadassia and he’s making a jab at that?

“And, why have you felt it necessary to soil this city with your presence?”

Dehl walks up to him and explains, “We come bearing peace when sought, and blades when necessary.” Ah, RPG methodology.

Scourgelord Skint: “Hah! And who are you, whelpling?”
Dehl: “…Dehl. Of the Sikohlon. And now, a Wadassian of Ilganyag.”
Scourgelord Skint: “Hmph.”

…Odd that that’s his only reaction. Shouldn’t he be interested that Dehl’s a Sikohlon?

“And, these blades you claim… Pah. Have you ever even killed a man?”
Dehl: “…”

That wasn’t a no~ The rest of the story may be pretty piecemeal, but it looks like Dehl’s backstory was solidified pretty early on if there’s such consistent foreshadowing like this. (Except for that imprisonment thing I mentioned earlier. That’s still weird.)

Skint closes his eyes, for some reason. Exasperation? Reflection? Because the conversation needed a pause? He grumbles about Wadassians being annoying meddlers and makes a veiled threat. Dehl continues to be a starry-eyed idealist: “You’ve made your point. If you wish to cooperate, however, then by all means…”

The fih’jik walks up to Skint, conveniently cutting Dehl off.

And thus we see one of Aryn’s…what, two lines in the entire game? To be honest, I don’t really see what purpose she’s supposed to serve. She has absolutely no character or involvement with the plot.

I presume that Aryn says something along the lines of “Shut up and stop dilly-dallying, we’ve got work to do,” because it convinces Skint to leave (but not before delivering another veiled threat because he really loves those I guess). However, in the process, of turning around, he reveals something interesting:

Everyone immediately flips out.

Santes: “Umm, Mister Scourge? Is there a big freakin’ sword coming out of your back?”

One of Santes’ better lines.

Skint explains he was betrayed by someone he swore to protect. The strike was supposed to kill him, but the wound healed so quickly that the sword was stuck inside. Now it can’t be removed without destroying all his organs. That’s some quality creepy! I wonder if shra regeneration that strong in general, or is Skint’s just freakishly potent? I think the developer may have answered that somewhere, but I forget.

Santes: “How can you sleep without rolling on to it?”
Scourgelord Skint: “Hah. If something like this happened to you, would you ever want to sleep again?”

I remember this confusing me on my first playthrough because I took it literally and assumed he was superhuman (supershra), but according to word of God he’s just messing with her. That…really could be clearer.

He turns away.

Scourgelord Skint: “Enough ridicule. Other business awaits me.”

Aw. He puts on a tough face but he must really hate how much attention it draws, especially because it’s the symbol of his fall from grace and no doubt a target of ridicule because of that. He had a “…” moment earlier on when people first noticed the sword. I thought it was just annoyance, but maybe it was apprehension – an “ugh, not again” moment.

He walks off. Qualstio notes that Dehl looks a bit flustered. Dehl explains he was worried he may have been a si’shra, but doesn’t think that’s the case.

Lani: “What? You mean one of the Blood-Crazed Shra? Can’t be! They can’t come this far!”

This is…kinda weird. Blood-crazed shra are completely different from the si’shra. I’m not clear if Lani’s confusion is intentional, to show her ignorance on the matter, or if it’s a plot hole written before the si’shra and bloodcrazed were separated into distinct groups.

Santes: “Umm. Question! What’s a Seee-Shra?”

And now Santes gets to act as the Watson because she’s so dumb she doesn’t know basic setting information urgh.

Dehl: “Monsters, they are. Shra who gorge and putrify themselves in the name of their god. Many do not believe they even exist. But…”
Zargos: “Heard of ’em, I have.

Then why doesn’t Santes know about them?

Skint wasn’t like ’em, I think. But, there was somethin’ else…”
Santes: “You mean his armor, don’t ya.”

Hooray, for once Santes actually knows something. Zargos explains (because of course Zargos has to be the actual expositor because Santes can never contribute anything of worth to the story) that it’s a very rare model that was only crafted ten years prior. It’s the same as the armor Zargos wears.

Dehl: “Ten years ago… oh…”

I find it a little amusing that so many things happened at that point that everyone probably has a different traumatic event relating to it. Dehl’s strong reaction is probably due to remembering the Blue Plague, not the rebellion.

Lani: “What happened then? Does it hafta do with that Blue Plague or somethin’? I don’t know a whle lot about Wadassia. I was still just a kid back then.”

This is a nice detail; I think it’s a good way to obliquely bring up the age differences of fih’jik without requiring that you know about the HN age entry in advance. Unfortunately, it does mean that Lani’s relegated to being the Watson for a while.

Zargos explains about the rebellion. Interestingly, it occurred after the royal family died – though it’s possible that it was arson, I don’t think the cause is ever explicitly stated. The resulting clash between the rebels and city guard led to the hiring of mercenaries. Zargos was one of them, choosing to fight for the city o’ course because Zargos is in favor of monarchies. The blacksmith who forged the armor sold to both sides, so naturally Zargos is leery of the possibility that Skint fought for the rebellion.

Interestingly enough, the rebels actually lost, and Some of us went to hunt ’em down so they were all brutally murdered I presume. The question of whether Zargos was a hunter or one who “just went home” is, interestingly, never brought up.

I really don’t see why Santes couldn’t have been the one to say all this. She was involved in the war too, you’d think she’d have some investment in this beyond just chipping in with “yeah that’s how we met” and then being silent for the rest of the scene. It’s especially grating because she’s constantly sidelined like this. Zargos’ character arc revolves around his involvement in the war and he gets actual growth out of it, but Santes is a static character who doesn’t talk about it much at all despite the fact that she should care about this too. Evidently, she fought with the loyalists if she was helping Zargos – why? What was her motivation for becoming a medic? Is she content with the results, or does she have any regrets? These questions would all be excellent fodder for her character arc, but they’re never answered. Many of them are answered for Zargos, but not her. She is forever the meaningless comic relief character with no plot relevance.

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