The Geneforge Playthrough of Insanity, Inanity, and Cake.

[Florien]

Episode 5: Zones visited; Thorny Woods, The Tombs, Northbridge, Southbridge, Buried Cells

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In which our hero immediately starts abusing newfound powers, and goes graverobbing.

Living tool assisted theft to the Tombs

After several hours staring at the best item of all time, I immediately set to work, returning to Pentil to check out the extremely well locked doors.



Well, they were extremely locked when I came there. They were not well locked when I left.



Much fun was had, breaking and entering. I broke and entered into this warehouse, with a canister (OW) and some exciting new equipment of varieties I wasn't supposed to have yet. A second canister, one of leadership and persuasiveness, wasn't safe either. (OW). With that one, I walked confidently up to Rydell, right past him, and picked the lock on his door, and he just stood there, mildly shocked, but no one dared move as I did so.



I marched right in, and went through some servile treatises on mechanics and combat, and absorbed the knowledge. I read Rydell's personal diary. I stole his boots, and a pair of magical looking gloves (which I'll never use because they're for people who want to use magic, which I am not.) I sold all of that stuff to the merchants outside. Rydell will have to buy back his own second pair of boots. This amused me slightly. I headed south-east of Pentil, reaching the thorny woods. I met an Obeyer called Demel.

 

She said that there were Takers in the woods behind her, but that they had mined the woods. She then said, very overconfidently, just begging me to prove her wrong, "They would like nothing more than you turning on me, killing me, and letting those rogues out of the woods".

I didn't do that. Yet. Instead, I decided to look in the woods and check out the Takers. Maybe they'd explain more about the outsiders, seeing as apparently they're working with them. At least, that's what I assume, considering that the spy way back spoke of their powerful allies. I saw that the mines were not spore mines, but instead box mines.



Box mines are different to spore mines. They come in red and green variants. The red ones usually explode, the green ones usually contain hostile creations. Unlike spore mines, there's no easy way to deactivate them. Usually, you have to walk up and manually turn them off before they explode. That requires some mechanical skill. (Which thankfully, I had) However, after several ambushes by the utterly obnoxious serviles, with javelins embedding in my chest repeatedly, I became extremely annoyed, in a way that I had never felt before I had come to the island. I gave up on listening to them entirely. If they wanted to talk, they could talk on their own time. If they attacked, they'd die instead. If the Takers found out, so WHAT!? If they're going to try to kill me like this, this is what's coming to them. It's not like they could pay me anyway. So I marched right into their encampment. As I approached, I heard some of the guards whispering that they couldn't break out until Demel was dead. Well, soon THEY'D be dead for inconveniencing me with repeated javelin injuries!



After killing every single one of them, and their leader, a servile named Ezog, I piled up everything I got from them. I don't know why I did that, but the pile looked impressive. 



I carted the lot out to sell, and told Demel on the way out about what I had done. She was very pleased. (I also told Mickall in Pentil. He was also very pleased, and did some very old fashioned gestures of respect, such as bowing so low as to press his head against the floor, and repeatedly praising me while saying that the serviles were not worthy to have such cool creators as me.) Also I had found two canisters in the area. (OW, OW), but it probably wasn't worth mentioning, as neither was particularly useful to me.

After dealing with that, I went farther south still, to a windy, dry area. Plainly, the land was diseased. Most likely, some shaping experiment had gone wrong, and the lab hadn't been properly sealed before the poison leached into the groundwater, making the area uninhabitable. However, not ones to let otherwise useful land go to waste, it had been converted into a graveyard for shapers.



At least, that's what the obelisk said. This interested me, because usually, shapers are buried with their original research notes. (if relatively little else. Magic items tend not to be buried, they're far too useful to do such things to.)  If I could get into the crypts and check out those research notes, I might find some techniques that I have not yet learned. After all, lots of research gets overlooked or goes unincorporated into standard practice. Considering that I didn't do well in my magic classes, this might be the best I can get until I escape the island.



I also found a substantial colony of unstable roamers. These things are like normal roamers, except weaker, slower, more frail, and other negative descriptors. The only thing they have going for them is that they explode if you hit them. Of course, I was too heavily plated to be hurt by their blasts, though having to wipe the roamer gunk off of my shirt quickly became frustrating on a deep level. How these things were considered the natural progression from roamers by the shaper council, and were mandated to be standardized, I don't know. I personally lay the blame at the feet of Shaper Tantalum (closely related to the rising star of my practical applications class, who showed up just before I graduated, a guy called Tungsten, who'd never shut up about how Tantalum was this big important council-seat holder. As for the element theme? Some people just have weird names.) But I only do that because I never liked Tungsten much. Always seemed the sort who'd go around annoying people until he got dumped on fort patrol duty, exclusively making defensive creations to defend some useless pass fort until he finally dropped dead of being too damn old or tripped and broke his neck on a rock or something.

After slogging through the roamers, and quietly hoping their inventor died horribly in some lab accident and didn't go on to live a long and healthy life, I found the embalming area, which still smelled of the chemicals used for that process. Also, unusually, it was defended.



Thahd shades, an obnoxious creation, rightfully removed from the list of approved variants to shape. Like all shades, it's difficult to contain if things go wrong. Like all thahds, it's loud, stupid, and destructive. It contains the good qualities of neither creation. I quickly dispatched the irritating creatures. After some scrounging around, I found the caretaker amulet, which should unlock the tombs. Also, a canister (ow) and a book detailing who was interred here. Apparently, these were important researchers. Less important ones were taken "elsewhere". The end notes said that Corata (the administration and logistics director, when the island was still functioning), had ordered the defenders to be placed, and had them in the tombs as well. Apparently, they'd just LEFT them when they barred the island. How frustrating. Either way, I'd soon deal with this. But first, I headed south to the coast.



I got an excellent view of the mainland. Oh sure, it's well over fifty miles away, but I could see it. No way I could swim out there. I also saw the mast of a ship, but on going to inspect it more closely...



It was the ship that had sunk my living craft the first day. Frustratingly, my living craft had sunk it in return. The sails were burned, the mast collapsed, and the whole thing run aground on a reef. Too large to be sailed by one, and already beyond seaworthiness anyway. I went to go into the tombs and check out the research notes. I entered one of the crypts...



And as I opened the book, I realized where I'd gone wrong. I'd flunked magic. This was a researcher gravesite. I barely understood half the diagrams arrayed before me, and the archaic spelling and old-fashioned punctuation completely ruined any hope of gaining better understanding of the magic. The handwriting was awful too. On breaking into the other tombs, I found much of the same. The knowledge arrayed was impossible to translate, because I didn't understand the diagrams. I couldn't figure them out from context, because the writing was clunky, technical, and followed archaic rules, making it incredibly difficult to parse. The writing I couldn't figure out from context either, because the diagrams weren't helpful, because though I recognized them, I didn't remember what any of them meant. I had never more regretted failing magic class. I received precious little knowledge from my grave-robbing spree there, though I entered every tomb. Merely some basic shaping knowledge which I'd probably never use. The one thing I did learn was how to better heal things. Everything else was largely useless to me. So, the south-western section of the island cleared, I moved eastwards, to northbridge.

In which our hero meets the first of the living outsiders, gets into some major fights, complains a lot, and then a title drop happens.

Northbridge to Buried Cells.

On arriving, I immediately saw the problem that had prevented travel across northbridge. It was mined all the way back up the path. The path mines were tiny and sickly, I walked right by them and let them explode. Then, I reached the bridge, and quickly realized that that course wouldn't work.



The mines in the middle were a healthier, stronger breed. Their blast could easily take off a limb. Not wanting to walk to southbridge just now, I resolved to find a way across here, if possible. The outsiders who placed these would be idiots to leave a deactivation mechanism on the far side of the bridge, so naturally, I suspected they did. After all, they'd have to be pretty stupid to strand me on the island, considering my impressive array of skills and propensity for easily crushing all opposition, as has been my attitude from the beginning. In my search, I found a canister in an old warehouse (ow) and then headed to the north-west end of the area.



What I found was a junkyard of partially scavenged, universally useless shaper trash. Old jars, research vats, screws and bolts, etcetera. Looking for the one who put all this here, I came upon some more mines. These ones behaved as mines are normally supposed to, their antenna bending away from me as I walked by, indicating their safety. I met a servile tinker, Lahnee, living back behind them.



He said the outsiders had placed the mines. He also said their leader was named Trajkov. Nothing I didn't know. And I was proven right about their stupidity. They'd left a baton behind by accident. It was damaged, and Lahnee had put it in a cabinet in his back room. I checked it out. It was a spore baton. A brown one, specifically. These sorts of things can discharge brown spores to deactivate brown-stripe mines. (Though of course, they are somewhat limited in spore supply) I patched up a crack in the side, and walked to the bridge. Activating the baton, the mines were cleared. I stepped across the bridge. Heading north, I was momentarily overcome by shock at what I saw. I'd expected it, but this was my first encounter with living humans since I'd arrived here.



Two soldiers, scouts by the look of them, were encamped on the other side. They shouted some stuff in a foreign language which I didn't understand, and then, speaking with a thick accent, they told me they were the Shoali, and this was Shoali land, and that I should not go further. I tried to tell them that they should probably leave, because the island was barred, but they didn't understand my language. I tried to explain to them that I needed to go further, but they didn't understand me. I considered telling them Trajkov had contacted me and I was supposed to go by, and that probably would have worked, but at the time, I was apparently standing too close for their liking. They panicked and drew their weapons, and it all escalated very quickly. Ultimately, they both were killed in the panic. I felt a little weird, having just killed some people, but I quickly justified it. They'd drawn weapons on me first. I did get their backup brown spore baton. I then headed out, having cleared one of the bridges successfully, and decided to "fuck southbridge's shit up" as the expression goes.

Arriving in southbridge, I quickly noted that whatever groundwater issues had been created that lead to the tombs extended out here. (Indeed, there were some more crypts on the west side of the river.) Also, a clawbug burrow. Clawbugs are essentially just common scorpions, but much bigger and angrier. Shapers, despite the existence of unstable roamers, charged vlish, and a few other choice creations, are not often ones to attempt to improve on perfection. Of course, as with most creations on this island, these ones attempted to kill me.



I swiftly dispatched them, as the cosmic ding rang once more. Then, I travelled to investigate the bridge itself.



Obnoxious, unhealthy, low quality, generic turrets greeted me. Easy enough to kill, and filled with valuable thorns, but nonetheless, annoying creatures, which kept scuffing up my armor as their thorns bounced off my chestplate. They were even more useless than the clawbugs were. I easily punched through them and started crossing the bridge. However, annoyingly, as with many things, there was a row of venom turrets behind them. Those proved even worse, as their thorns were larger and more painful, and better aimed too, not to mention poisonous. Those too, however, were backed up by a kind of turret I recognized from home. An ACID turret, which fired even BIGGER thorns which dripped with ACID INSTEAD OF POISON, EVEN MORE ACCURATELY. This was horrifyingly painful, to say the least. But I overcame them with some difficulty.







(Pictured, "Some difficulty")

On reaching the other side, the only things I found of note were an abandoned camp and some Shoali supplies, as well as a letter in their language (which I couldn't read.) Presumably, the scouts travelled between the pair of bridges, and, as I had killed them, they'd not come by here in a while. I also found a canister. (OW). I learned how to make clawbugs! Another ability I'll probably never use. Obviously, I then inspected the areas beyond. I went back to Pentil to sell the thorns and tell Pixley that the bridges were clear, depleted their merchants of coin at last, and travelled eastwards over northbridge. I arrived in a forested area. I found some shaper ruins in the area, and, as usual, the servant mind inside was alive.



It was extremely hungry though, and probably on the verge of death by starvation. I fed it a jar of mind nutrients, and it recovered fairly quickly. It knew a lot. It said that this complex was a storage facility for creations. Most of them were long dead, but shades and a new kind of turret had probably survived. It referred to the shades as exciting and new, which implied they'd been invented here. Another reason this place was shut down, I assumed, considering that making shades has been banned for years, because of how difficult they are to contain. Apparently the cells here were specially built. The mind referred to the new turret as a "reaper turret". Apparently it's the biggest and strongest turret type ever. Having never heard of it myself, I assumed that it probably was left here with the island before it could be regulated and authorized for non-experimental use.

The mind also mentioned that Defniel, the training director on the island before it shut down, had come by to seal the complex, and had mentioned something about a thing called a "Geneforge" being the reason, complaining that the others had pushed too far, and that everything would have been fine if they hadn't been going too fast with it. Whatever this "Geneforge" is, I should probably find out about it. I then got the mind to unlock the complex doors, and as I stepped into the rest of the holding facility, I knew no doubt, a lot of information was about to become clear to me.

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End of Episode 5. The Map as it stands: