We reforge the Sunspear (although there must obviously have been multiple of these in the past seeing that a blisterwood dagger called the Sunspear was used to kill Tenebra, though perhaps the Myreque named that dagger the Sunspear after hearing of that name in folklore, while the two are actually unrelated) using Drakan's spearhead, a blisterwood stick (which is unbankable – whyyyy
) and a Wolfbane dagger. Next, time to investigate haemalchemy in an attempt to cure Safalaan's, ahem, condition. To the old laboratories!
We are greeted by Sarius Guile, who appropriately feels quite guile-ty (sorry) for what happened after our last meeting. After some neat dialogue about her father Mauritys, we are to search the laboratories for more of his research. It wasn't very hard, unfortunately; the book we needed could be found on the old table in the chamber with mutated bloodveld. Which was literally the only thing in the entire cave with a search option... Come on, guys, could have at least made the crates searchable. Anyway, interesting read, though it does make one wonder how vamp**isation (e.g. Vanstrom's – whose history was never elaborated on despite Ana's intention to do so, although it was implied in the previous quest that he might have been a vamp*rised Ascertes Hallow. Guess that's my headcanon then) was carried out before the opening of the laboratories. I squealed at the mentioning of daeyalt. There is, however, something unclear here. Consider the following bits:
Bizarre Boron Fusswell, scryer extraordinaire.
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Mauritys Guile:
Original message details are unavailable.
Ever more mouths to feed as countless more vyres are created; the never-ending need for more human blood. Against our will, we tinker and toil with compounds - experimenting, researching and recording - but to what aim?
It's clear to me, now, that it is not to our aid, but to our efficiency in producing more blood! As the farmer feeds livestock to fatten our food so too the vyres seek to fatten our blood.
But it has not gone well for the vyres and, just now, the laboratory has closed down. All outward manner of its appearance is disguised to hide its purpose, and all my fellows associated with it have disappeared.
With such haste and secrecy did this come about that I dare to think some rare and dangerous thing has been discovered there; something that may put fear into the hearts of the vyre, if indeed a heart should beat there at all.
Mauritys II:
Original message details are unavailable.
Drakan has had the haemalchemy laboratory destroyed. Something he discovered about my work has made him fearful, as well he should be.
The work that I was forced to do for our vampyric overlords was of dark purpose and has no doubt caused much suffering over the years, but within it I discovered a glimmer of hope, and so I committed my life's work to it.
The vampyres sought to use my expertise to enslave us further, with ill experiments to extend our lives, subdue our minds, and to turn us into a more efficient food source.
They assumed this haemalchemical research would only lead to achieving their goals, but the magic is more versatile than they know.
I have had to compromise my ideals to keep up appearances, and the vampyres' foul experiments have only resulted in giving them the ability to corrupt other species, imposing their insatiable bloodlust upon them.
Bizarre Boron Fusswell, scryer extraordinaire.
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Then, Vanescula:
Original message details are unavailable.
I believe Drakan inadvertently discovered the secret to vampyres not needing to feed on human blood. Of course he destroyed the evidence; this revelation would shake the very foundations of our society.
So what was discovered in the laboratories? An endless supply of blood? The fact that vamp*rised humans could be healed using refined daeyalt and Guthix Balance? Because if it's the former, the quest's premise makes no sense: if Vanescula wanted to conquer Misthalin so that the vampyres could gain access to new blood supplies, why not just renew the research in the laboratories? Was Vanescula lying to us, or simply wrong?
Anyway, exit laboratories (short visit
) and off to the daeyalt mine after getting my House Drakan disguise. And then – oh gods YES – finally into the daeyalt refinery!
It looked nothing like in my imagination, but who cares, we finally get to enter the place. Not exactly city-sized, but it did its job. For some reason, the Vampyre J**inates inside attacked me, a servant of House Drakan, whereas those in the mine had treated me with respect as they should have. Death it is then – while having to endure more handholding popup counters, I slew the J**inates with Guthix Balance and broke the quest because apparently you had to use the Sunspear. Strange, since Guthix Balance has been the first thing that comes to mind when fighting J**inates ever since In Aid of the Myreque, but that's not very important. Relogging fixed the situation, and I was able to release the poor abductees from Burgh de Rott.
Bizarre Boron Fusswell, scryer extraordinaire.
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The process of vamp**isation is then set off and we have to shut down the refinery before half of Burgh de Rott is converted. I noticed the new converts are J**inates rather than Juveniles, wonder if there was a particular reason for that other than compatibility with human models. Fortunately, we are able to shut down the refinery by operating some blood locks as in the previous quest. It would've been a challenge without
The Taste of Hope
, but for some reason our character remember all of the preferred tastes by heart. Ah well, no particular reason this should have been very hard. We then accidentally rouse Wyrdalaan, who poisons and kills— oh, no, wait, we survive, okay. Guess wyrds can administer non-lethal doses of poison, akin to snakes. The rejuvenation tank, by the way, was quite a cool concept. I wonder if that is where J**inates go when you defeat them and they hahaha time to rejuvenate. Oh and we mine some refined daeyalt, huzzah! Only been waiting ten years for that!
So here comes the bit where we feel as if we've had too many Dwarven Stouts. A very interesting section; the graphical effects were very nice, though it's a bit of a shame that the music track, Hallucinations, was just ambient rumbling without much to it. A Dream Theatre-esque remix of some iconic Myreque tracks would have been more appropriate, methinks. Anyway, some very cool things here; skeleton hellhounds uttering Vanstrom's phrases, shattering windows (I nearly got a heart attack when that happened by the way, thanks very much), Myreque heads (D
, cute Harold, and a random Grand Exchange booth, which is probably a reference I didn't get. On the penultimate floor, we find a Blisterwood tree, the Stone of Jas and an imagined conversation between Lowerniel and Vanescula.
Bizarre Boron Fusswell, scryer extraordinaire.
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The Stone, I think, should definitely not have been there (especially not the model from Dishonour among Thieves...), as the quest has no requirements that feature the Stone in any way (other than the hidden reference to it in Defender of Varrock, but that hardly counts) and it has nothing to do with the series anyway (Movario's notes suggest the Stone might have been in Morytania at one point, which is plausible, but that's it). Admittedly, the 'Nothing interesting happens.' was quite amusing, but not appropriate. After blowing up the Stone, we make it to the top, a short jingle gives me another heart attack, and we confront the Wyrd together with Efaritay.
Let's just say the millennia of incarceration wore the old queen down because I've seen cabbages fight better than she did. The following fight was entertaining, though the Vanstrom bits were badly done; he had too few hitpoints, he used Fire Strike instead of blood magic and his special attack could best be avoided by completely ignoring it. Of course, Vanstrom's been pathetically weak and bugged in The Branches of Darkmeyer and the Dominion Tower ever since EoC (and I hope he gets fixed eventually), so if anything it's consistent. -_- After defeating and talking sense into Safalaan, we obtain a phial of Wyrd blood, brew Extreme Guthix Balance and back to Paterdomus it is.
We pour the potion into the well and Ivan blesses it, followed by a cool graphical effect. At this point, Ivan's role in the series is over, which is kind of a letdown. It had been said from the very beginning that he had special talents and that Vanstrom and Drakan desired to capture him. We know from the previous quest and Drezel's tragic death he is descended from Ivandis Seergaze, which is cool, but surely that's not it? Ivan was destined to become an extremely important character in the latter half of the series, but all he's really done is A) not died and B) flapped his arms at a well.
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While the Myreque series has outstanding characterisation, surpassed only by perhaps the Dorgeshuun and Rise of the Red Axe series, this felt like a wasted potential.
Back at the bridge, the vampyres reappear and Vanescula sends four members of the Vyrewatch to attack. They're subsequently turned back into humans (from Burgh de Rott no less – Vanescula had known pretty damn well what had happened to them!), both offending and infuriating the Mistress of Darkmeyer, who also loses control over the Werewolves. Now, I am in two minds about how this was handled. On one hand, it makes sense for the werewolves to disobey their masters when they need them desperately and are in a weak position, and it opens up narrative possibilities for a werewolf story (which would probably also involve the splinter group, since they allowed the werewolves to cross the Salve). On the other hand, however, the last thing a werewolf would want to do when surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of vampyres is to disobey them and insult Vanescula Drakan herself. Even if, say, Misthalin won the battle and Vanescula were to be slain, there'd still be plenty of moments for, say, Lord Malak, or any of the Vyrewatch, really, to punish the werewolves for their cowardice and/or treason. Nothing Misthalin wouldn't do anyway if they would defeat the vampyres; Aeonis*g and Rovin would see to that.
But at any rate, Vanescula yields, and the quest is effectively over (what happened to Sarius??). The dialogue that led to her giving in was good, and given that such a momentous turn of events and shift of the status quo is extremely difficult to pull off well narratively, I think this was done fairly solidly. She then recounts a story about an event on Vampyrium (frankly the only reference to that place in the entire series that was appropriate) that is quite unsettling, before returning to the Sanguinesti.
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We debrief King Roald (who was never present at Paterdomus himself, which, although his dialogue on the topic makes sense, is a bit of a shame, considering his role in the Second Battle of the Salve almost five years prior) and yay quest complete.
Well, not yay. As I said, while the majority of the quest sits neatly between 'good' and 'outstanding', it was most of all lacking in length. It covered the most important bits, sure, but there's so much more that could have been involved, and I'm confident the developers would have been able to create a much longer, fantastic quest if only given the time and resources.
Summing up, did I like the quest? Yes. Probably. Yes, I would say I did. Was it a satisfactory finale? Story-wise, it was a sufficiently decent finale, yes – in terms of the story it actually covered. Perhaps Lowerniel's death has been treated too lightly as its impact was not very visible in this quest, perhaps the splinter group weren't tied into the story as much as would have been ideal, ... Perhaps, given more time, that would all have been possible. But unfortunately, it has not been done justice in terms of development time. Perhaps one would be justified to say 'it already had a lot if you add everything together' and that's probably correct, but 'a lot' doesn't necessarily mean 'enough', as was sadly evident in this case. So yes; great quest, but there should have been more. Eerily reminiscent of Birthright of the Dwarves; a great quest but not living up to its potential at all.
Hopefully the remaining questions will be answered at one point or another.
In spite of everything, i.e. RoB not being what it could have been, it sits comfortably high on my list. I guess my ranking of Myreque quests is now:
DoH > IAotM > TBoD > RoB > LoS > TLoV > ISotM
which is semi-arbitrary and not very meaningful, as I simply love the series as a whole. If only it'd got a more
complete
finale, as it deserves.
Bizarre Boron Fusswell, scryer extraordinaire.
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— Zanik
08-May-2016 14:26:17
- Last edited on
08-May-2016 14:35:18
by
Lord Drakan
To end the review, I'd only like to pose some questions. Not things like 'what is the significance of the crypt beneath Burgh de Rott and the decaying tome within' (though that does still need to be answered), but essentially sub-questions of 'what now?'. The quest did a good job at story-telling most of the time, but when will "part two" come?
The splinter group - revealed to be
much
more important than we originally thought - are still out there. Aeonis**, an extremely able and potentially dangerous individual with too much power on his hands, is now an ambassador for the new government of Morytania. It was again hinted he has ties to the splinter group, so what is he going to do now? What will be done about the werewolves? Vanescula's debt to Malak? The discord between the human converts and the true nobility of vampyres, whose status as vampyre is being treated as an affliction? Won't they rise up? What about Vanstrom? He's dead, but he is the main antagonist in the series, with Lowerniel more of a background character - he was only mentioned and hallucinated a bit after his death, why did he not remain a major character?
Bizarre Boron Fusswell, scryer extraordinaire.
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Perhaps you're half right; perhaps we can't win. But we can fight.
— Zanik
08-May-2016 14:48:06
- Last edited on
08-May-2016 14:53:57
by
Lord Drakan
We know that Vanstrom is supposed to be Ascertes, so I would like some in-game confirmation of that, possibly as a way to blackmail the fragile alliance between Safalaan, Efaritay, and Vanescula. I'm not overly interested in seeing much with the werewolves, but I absolutely want to see the splinter group dealt with.
Kemtros
said
:
We know that Vanstrom is supposed to be Ascertes, so I would like some in-game confirmation of that, possibly as a way to blackmail the fragile alliance between Safalaan, Efaritay, and Vanescula. I'm not overly interested in seeing much with the werewolves, but I absolutely want to see the splinter group dealt with.
Yeah, they can't go suddenly revealing the splinter group where the greatest villains in the series, the master puppeteers behind everything, then not use them in follow-up content.
Headcanon: Saradominist leader is Aeonis*g and Zamorakian leader Papelford, his frail body magically sustained by a gift of Tenebra's.
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