The Geneforge Playthrough of Insanity, Inanity, and Cake.

[Florien]

Episode 6: Zones visited; Buried Cells, Quiet Marshes, Kazg Plains, Stone Circle, Crystal Burrow, Servile Outpost, Kazg Ruins, Kazg.

---

In which our hero returns after literally no time at all what do you mean this update is late haha even if it was that wasn't because Peggle briefly consumed the author's life, it was because of uhh technical reasons not caused by playing peggle instead of clearing a zone. Also yes this is a bigger update to make up for the lack of updates.


In which our hero sells someone their own stuff back twice without comment, gets nauseated by the horrific damage they've presumably done to their internal organs before the damages heal, and speaks to a moderately wise servile with a lot of information to lay upon our hero.

Buried Cells Cont. To Quiet Marshes

On stepping through the doorway into the rest of the complex, I was greeted by a realization that I should probably look around outside first actually (this feeling not lessened nor inflicted by what I had spotted inside.) Instead, I headed to the north end, passed some turrets which, for once, were not aggressive, and walked into a servile shop! Apparently Lahnee only controlled his side of the river. On the other side lived this servile, Buron.



He'd been attempting to figure out how to breed Batons, Living tools, Etcetera. This is very difficult work, you normally have to be specially trained to do it. I checked out his pens though.



Very interesting. Obviously, it probably won't work. Even if a baton is bred, you still need to put it in its frame without killing it, which is tricky. Living tools are easier, but still incredibly difficult. But nonetheless, it's a lot of initiative and cunning. I wouldn't have expected this from serviles before I arrived on this island. I asked him about the complex, and he told me that it was somewhat dangerous. He also said that some humans (presumably the Shoali) had been in there, but one had been killed and they had run out. The one that was killed supposedly had a submission baton, the strongest of the batons, at least back home. He asked if I could retrieve it for him to use for his breeding population. That's when I actually went into the complex.

(Well, after picking his extremely well secured storeroom lock and selling him back his entire stock. The merchants here don't even seem to mind that sort of thing.)



There were mines and things in the corridors. Also sporeboxes for turning them off, which I did. I checked out various locations. A jaunt into the holding cells, after I got past a strong looking rogue vlish shade (which though powerful in striking, did not survive more than one blow of mine), I came upon the dead Shoali with a baton I had been told of.



I grabbed the baton, and decided to return it after finishing exploration of the complex. I entered a few holding cells, running into one more vlish shade, but little else, until I walked into one of the cells and...



THIS was the reaper turret? It looked withered and weak! It was only an old submission turret. Sorely disappointed, I walked up to it to put it out of its misery, and

BANG BANG BANG BANG

It stunned me with the first shot so I couldn't hit it. Then it stunned me with the second shot. And the third shot. And then...



Or that's what would have happened, had I not cunningly survived all that and stabbed it to death. Because that's what happened. I didn't die to the damn thing four times because of how powerful stunlocking is, because dying to something multiple times would be impossible.

I killed it, and grabbed a canister it was protecting. Clearly, the thing wasn't even a real reaper turret, this version had been much too recognizable as a submission turret, a common and devastating kind from back home. The actual reaper turret must have been moved, or disposed of. However, a tantalizing hint of its presence remained in the cabinet near the turret. Enormous, sharp thorns, radiating magical energy. Reaper Thorns. They looked like submission thorns, but larger. Heavier. And more importantly, potentially explosive. After that, I found two canisters in the complex and with a short yelp of pain for each, I exited the complex to give the servile his requested baton. He was very grateful and said I could take anything in his store, so I sold his entire stock back to him again, and also the reaper thorns, which he paid me forty five coins for, an enormous sum for such things.

After doing that, I proceeded out the back of the complex, to go and see other things and get by. Killing some Artilla along the way, I marched right into a marsh. It was quiet. Walking a few feet in, I suddenly doubled over, retching and coughing. Dry heaves, and other such things wracked me for a good minute or two. As I recovered, I looked at myself. I noticed for the first time just how radiant my skin was. Not just "looking good" radiant, but "literally glowing" radiant. My muscles were visibly shifting under my skin, without my guidance. My mind felt incredibly clear, clearer than it ever had. I looked at a flock of roamers, guided by a rogue vlish in the distance. They looked not only unimpressive, but actively sloppy. I could crush them if I wanted. I did want to. But as I stood up, I came to the conclusion that this was probably the canisters doing this to me. And aside from the brief wave of intense nausea, I liked it.



Also the water was purple but that was probably nothing to worry about.

After that experience, I went around, picking off the packs of roamers guided by vlish. I came across a canister, but as I approached it, I saw two dead outsiders with horrific burns across their arms, the skin on their hands torn apart. There was dried blood on the needle.



I threw caution to the wind and tried to use the canister.

It didn't work out so great. It turned out this one had turned sour, and now was merely an extremely virulent poison. I managed to stop it with a spell before it caused my arm to fall off. I took the outsiders' stuff though. As I cut through a few more roamer packs with vlish at the helm, I came upon a lone servile.



Clois was her name, and she was very old, easily older than the normal upper bound of servile age. She was nearly blind too. She claimed the title of sage. She said she knew little, but would share what she knew. I asked her of the island's history. She said even she is not old enough to remember the shapers leaving, but that she knows they discovered "life is scrolls" or something along those lines, and that those scrolls are copied everywhere in the body and are very small. They looked at the scrolls in a living being. They also discovered how to change those scrolls, and that then they realized this was a dangerous thing, and left. When I asked her about the scrolls, she said that is what she had heard them described as. The shapers, she said, had called them "Genes".

The canisters, she said, rewrite the scrolls millions upon millions of times, allowing humans to gain power. She told me to use caution, for the shapers had abandoned them, so maybe such things were better used carefully and judiciously, for the danger they bring could be great.

I asked her about a boat, with which I could leave. She laughed at that. She said that I stood on a volcano on the verge of eruption and looked for butterflies. I told her the metaphor was stupid. She told me there is a boat at the eastern central docks, but I should put it from my mind for now, and deal with the metaphorical volcano first.

I asked her for some more knowledge of hers. She told me that she was once an Obeyer, but saw the works of the shapers, and thought that she had come to know us. She said that she realized we were human. She also said that though the shapers say they created serviles, that she believed serviles were once human, modified long ago to serve. She believed that inside, we are the same. Our minds are equal. And that as a result, serviles should serve no longer.

I agreed with her on this point, though I'm not entirely sure if the whole "serviles were human once" thing is true myself. I told her as much. I asked her next about things on the island. She said she only knew what others had told her and the little she had seen, as she had not left the marsh in many years, for she is too old to travel far.

I told her of Trajkov. She told me that she had heard of him. He led the outsiders, and is very important. She advised me to find out more. I told her about the Geneforge, as the servant mind had mentioned. She said that that was not much to go on, but nonetheless, I should talk to her if I find out more about it. She said that there are two groups who would know about the outsiders. First, the leader of the takers would. Second, there is an encampment of the outsiders to the east of Kazg, being besieged by them. If I could talk to them, they might tell me more of the secrets of the island too.

Finally, I asked her of the factions, and what she thought of them. She said she thought very little of them. She said they've all no doubt made their own errors, and all presumably have a few truths of their own. They'd come to her for advice in the past, but no longer. Having asked her everything I could, I fought my way out of the marsh, and eastwards.

In which our hero checks out the outskirts of Kazg, kills a bunch of guards and gets away with it, does archeology and gets spooked by a ghost, and tries to get into Kazg the back way.

Kazg Plains to Servile Outpost

On arrival in the area north of Kazg, my questions about why exactly they had become so martial and so angry at the shapers, as well as my questions if they really were as angry at the shapers as people said, were answered.



Toppled statues of shapers lined the road into town. But more importantly, the land was dry, dusty, and unhealthy. Some kind of seepage, perhaps, or groundwater issues, or long-ago overfarming, or some other such thing, had ruined the soil in the area. To live off this miserable land for centuries, for your ancestors to tell you that it was good until soon after the shapers left, to need to war and hunt to survive, to need to ration and militarize just to get by? No wonder such things had happened. Yet, in the north, there were carts full of better dirt, a field of plants grown in the better dirt, and such things. The industrious serviles of Kazg had apparently been committed to maintaining farms, rather than abandoning the city, and to do so, they had shipped in healthy dirt from other regions of the island. I explored the fields, and walked into a patrol.



The farmers had been calm. The soldiers were less so. They drew weapons and charged. Meanwhile, a middle-aged officer called Amena stepped up to me during the chaos. He made a comment saying that Gnorrel, the leader of the takers, wanted to see me, but he wasn't going to let me through the gate, nor tell his soldiers to not stab me, because he really didn't like me much. He recommended I go away and not come back. Naturally, I had to defend myself from his soldiers, and started chopping at them as they continued to attack. Soon I'd killed several.

While ducking into a forest to avoid the rest for a bit, I came across a servile.



She was very nervous. Her name was Hew, and she quickly confessed to being an Obeyer spy. She said the takers were allied with the outsider humans, that there were two shapers on the island, one of them being me, who the takers were supposed to talk to, and one being a different one who the takers were supposed to kill. Interesting, this is the first I'd heard of a second shaper on the island. I resolved to try to get in through the back way into the city instead. Though my skills of persuasion were good, I doubted Amena, despite his name, would be much Amenable to those skills, and I'd rather check the back way anyway. If the takers really wanted to work with me, I could kill a good chunk of their army first and they'd be forced to forgive me. Either I end up working with them and they achieve their goals due to a shaper backing them, or I end up not working with them and they're weaker. It's a win/win, aside from the serviles laying dead in the dirt. But really, did they even matter? After all, I'm very cool, I'm significantly better than even any normal human, considering my canister use, and they're just not as cool as me. That was my thought as I took those actions. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I thought that I really shouldn't think this way. But I brushed that thought aside, as I walked.

Some progress later, and a few more soldiers dead, I came to the houses outside of Kazg. I met a servile called Srel. She said her bonded had been killed by rogues, she asked why the shapers did this. A chill went down my spine as I realized that this was the exact question Nately had asked me back in Pentil. I told her the truth, what I should have told Nately. That we had abandoned her. That we were wrong to do so. That it was, in a way, the fault of the shapers that her bonded had died. I went next door. I may have decided the deaths of a few serviles were necessary, but it was still difficult to talk to people at all, and hear their stories. People who's stories I'd heard were much more difficult to kill. The guards, the Shoali scouts, the people like that I'd slain, they had no stories. But Srel, she had one. And that broke me up inside. I went outside for a bit, and tried to stop feeling intensely bad. It took several minutes.

I then went into her neighbors house.



A servile called Agat was there. He looked cold, in the sense that he would probably stab someone if asked. He called himself an Agent. That was odd, considering that back home, Agent refers exclusively to the class of shaper who goes around solving problems with diplomacy and extreme violence. I asked him about that. He said that he was an agent in the same sense, going around, working for Gnorrel, and solving her problems with extreme violence and sometimes diplomacy. He said that he could get the guards to let me through, if I found an Obeyer spy who he knew was somewhere, but he hadn't found yet.

I decided to hold off on telling him about Hew for now. I tried to get into Kazg without that, and ended up killing several more guards, before finding myself facing the entrance, realizing how many guards were inside, and backing away before they swarmed out and killed me. I decided the back way in would be safer, so I walked all the way around, across southbridge, and to the area just across it. Vlish shepherds guided lesser creations in the standard pattern throughout the area. Meanwhile, interesting carved pylons could be seen among the trees and in such places like that.



These things were plainly very old. Probably older than shaper inhabitance on the island. Very interesting, archeologically speaking. If Sucia wasn't barred, it could presumably have a tourist trade. In the middle of the grove, more evidence for that came to light.



A substantial stone circle, with a rock in the middle. I felt mildly sick standing next to it. Not enough to start coughing up blood or anything, but enough to not want to stand there. Probably some curse or something. I checked out an old waypost, and found a journal from some shaper researcher.



Whoever wrote it apparently noticed the stone circle's magic too, but didn't have time to figure out what exactly was going on before the island was barred. They did write about maybe the pylons having something to do with it. Looking around, I came upon a particularly pylon rich grove.



Also there was a dead outsider and a servile in it, presumably killed by the rouges outside. Some investigation revealed that one of the pylons had a secret compartment. Prying it open, I found a small lacquered bone baton. I decided to solve the mystery of the stone circle before proceeding on. I cleared out the rest of the rogues in the area to be able to explore better, and thus, I heard the cosmic ding once more.

I noticed some strange runes on the ground during my exploration.



They hadn't seemed important before, but lacking anything better to do, I took the baton and waved it in the rune's general direction, and felt very silly while doing so. Immediately, a blast of icy wind whipped through the clearing, and I felt watched. Also some trees that had been there earlier suddenly weren't. I walked into the newly opened area behind the trees, and suddenly...



HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT A GHOST! That was INCREDIBLY unexpected. Not only was it a ghost, but an extremely ANGRY ghost! I struck it down. After calming down a bit, I checked out the pylons. They were better preserved than the ones outside. All kinds of interesting markings and symbols and writing were on them. Nothing I could understand, of course, but fascinating nonetheless. I decided to check out the other ground-runes. Doing so, the same thing would happen. A blast of icy wind, some trees would vanish, and new groves, infested with angry ghosts, would open. I would kill the ghosts, and move to the next grove. After doing that, I decided there was nothing further I could do at this time, and so soon left the grove, on to the next region.

On walking up the road, it seemed like pretty clear sailing. Nothing was wrong at all, until I spotted something up ahead on the pathway.



A sea of large, powerful mines. I'd have to find a way around the main road to get by, for these kinds were large enough to kill. I decided to cut through the forest to find a different way by. Instead, I walked into a cave hidden behind the trees. Crystals littered the place.



I stepped too close to a blue one in the middle, and it burst, with a bright flash and a loud keen. A thahd jumped out from a passageway and tried to kill me. But I bested it. I soon figured out the purpose of those crystals. They were to alert thahds in the walls, who would jump out of hiding. I slew them all, and explored the rest of the network. I found a couple canisters. (Ow, ow) and then, I proceeded to find a spore switch in a hidden grove, not visible from the road.



Presumably, it controlled the mines. I used it. On the way out of the caves, I saw a dead outsider. He had some letters in his belt pouch. They were written in their language, which I did not speak, but I took them for future reference, should I ever learn the language. Proceeding east, I came upon the outpost of Obeyers, mentioned long ago by Mickall Blade, in Pentil. Their leader, Doge, spoke to me.



He told me that it's miserable. They've been under almost constant attack from rogues. He told me to tell Mickall that it is bad and half of the compliment he was given are dead. He also told me that there had been rumors of a shaper on the island for months, while talking about how he had never expected a shaper to visit him. He also said that a taker had fled Kazg and contacted him, saying that this time the takers had gone too far, and that they were doing something with something called a "geneforge". I didn't tell him what I knew about it. This just confirmed what I knew, that there was a second shaper, seeing as I'd not been here more than a couple weeks, and that the outsiders and the takers were allied, and somehow a "geneforge" was involved. How interesting, and alarming. I decided to leave the settlement, but then, as I walked to the road out, there was a loud roar from the forest. The serviles armed themselves quickly, and screamed that an attack was happening. A minute passed. Nothing happened. It was quiet.

Then suddenly, a swarm of artilla swept in, and at their helm, one of the big three creations burst into the clearing!



A battle alpha, the top-of-the line in battle type creations. They're closely related to thahds, in that their main skill is punching hard. But they're much stronger and much more resilient. This fearsome foe stood before me, and tried to slap me. It did. It hurt like hell, but it mostly bounced off my armor. The more fearsome part of the combination were the artilla, of course. individually unimpressive, together they could easily kill someone with a concentrated stream of acid. I soon fought through most of them, and cut down the battle alpha. The serviles mopped up some of the artilla. No casualties.

Doge told me that the battle alpha had been leading the attacks, and it was a great victory that it was dead now. The attacks would surely lessen. Also I found a canister down a side path. (ouch). I left the area, and headed east once more, entering the outskirts of Kazg.

In which our hero fights through Kazg's outskirts, gets into the city, and learns of some important locations, then a straw breaks the metaphorical camel's back, and our hero makes a resolution.

Kazg Ruins to Kazg

On reaching the outskirts, I was struck by the size of the settlement.



Kazg was easily the size of a small city. This was far more than a research outpost. The buildings had fallen into ruin, by natural processes and servile vandalism and looting alike, but the place was enormous. A patrol approached me, and the leader immediately moved to attack me. They were covered in scars and tattoos. There was neither a sign of obedience nor sanity in them, as they were not able to be reasoned with. I had to kill them before they killed me.

I commenced exploration. I found a canister in a warehouse (ow), and a second one in a corner (ow again), but so far, no way into the city. I took a different route. I cut down another patrol who attempted to kill me, and came across a dead servant mind.



The obelisk outside called it "control two", which meant that controls two, three, and four were accounted for. I wondered where control one was, and whether that one was alive. I left, considering that, as I walked into a building. I was quite surprised to find a living, non-hostile servile there.



He told me he was named "Arth", and suddenly I realized this must be Coale's contact. I asked him about trade, and he said that there was no way, because the takers would execute him for treason even if the roads weren't dangerous. I sold him some armor and such I had picked up. He had no food, but I didn't have any to spare.

After punching through another patrol, I came across a servile at the gate, presumably Amena's south-gate counterpart.



His name was Rosen, and he said he wanted me dead, but Gnorrel had told him to let me through, and he wasn't about to disobey orders like Amena. So I walked into Kazg, the city of the takers, where the serviles hate the shapers.

Arriving in Kazg, the serviles immediately panicked and prepared for battle. I ended up in a standoff, until a large, armored servile told them to stand down unless I committed crimes. He introduced himself as Eko Blade, the leader of the guard in Kazg, and said I should speak with Gnorrel. Instead, I went to the library and looked around. The library was in good condition, though no special efforts had been made to preserve the scrolls and ledgers and such. But the scale of Kazg made it clear, this had been the center of shaper power on the island once, and now, it was the center of anti-shaper power.

Some investigations in the library revealed the original proclamation of interim barring. Corata had signed off on it, and Danette was cited as a relevant researcher. Notably, it didn't say that the barring was indefinite or permanent, merely an interim one, to be reconsidered or strengthened after discussions with all relevant researchers involved. I didn't know that either. Surely it must have been permanent, but such a major decision would have been the biggest barring in history. That would have come up in the barring procedure classes, or so I thought.

That just made me think that whatever was on this island must be an utterly enormous problem, if it was so bad that it wasn't even talked about. I also met the taker librarian, Tovio.



He was not very helpful, speaking in short words and omitting many articles. He said the Awakened, such as myself, were not willing to pay the price for freedom, for the shapers would never let the serviles be free without war. He said that he spoke this way because to do otherwise would be to imitate the ways of the shapers, and that the serviles should speak in their own way if needed. He also took the time out to insult me repeatedly. I eventually got away from him and found an enormously important ledger.

It described the main complexes on the island. Apparently, there are two workshops, a west and a south one. They were used to produce crystal spires and such things. There's also a crystal mine along the north-east edge of the island. The main research facility is far to the north-east, under the largest part of the mountain ridge that marks the north of the island. There's a western door and a southern door to the facility. Also, a large chunk of pages were missing from the end. Possibly ledgers of where the most important stuff on the island was stored! It looked like they were torn out recently. Presumably they were somewhere else in the city.

Some looking around took me to Tovio's house. I talked my way past the guard, convincing him that I was there on important taker business. He believed me, and I got inside. I found out that Tovio had been translating the outsider language. I learned some from the book, and started compiling notes on it so I could better speak it. On its own, I couldn't use it for much, but if I found out more, I might be able to speak it.

I also found the missing pages! Indeed, they were valuable. They spoke of two items called "entry batons", not something I was familiar with. One was forgotten in the west workshop, and one was left in the mines. The other thing it mentioned was a control key. Control Keys tend to only be given out to the highest-ranked shapers at a facility. They're custom made to turn on and off most everything at the facility. Apparently, the control key to the island was left in the south workshop, for use to reactivate things "after the barring is lifted, as it surely will be". Taking note of all that, I decided to talk to Gnorrel at last. She leads the takers, and could presumably explain much. So I went to her complex, and immediately got sidetracked by the art gallery.



...



To this day, I have no idea how this spiral-y glass-slag shit counts as art. I might get one of them for my house back home, sure, it would look fine if kept clean, but EIGHT!? Who the fuck would want these? The serviles obviously didn't destroy these things only because they show how terrible shaper art is. I looked directly at it and felt a burning hatred for all things shaper. I decided then and there that I would join the takers solely to destroy the shaper establishment that let THIS SO-CALLED ART happen. EVERY SHAPER WHO OPPOSED ME would DIE for allowing this "art" to not be barred forever. But NO! It had made it off this island. This kind of "art" was EVERYWHERE back home, and I would start a war solely to end it. The treatment of the serviles was bad enough, but THIS?! This was a step too far. A newfound confidence within me, I walked up to Gnorrel.



She told me the story of the takers. How they had stayed loyal for years, as the land grew worse and the rogues ravaged the island. How one day, a servile stepped forward, and spoke out, mad with hunger and anger, and shouted that the shapers were bad for what they had done, and that serviles should "take their free" They were killed, but the seeds of doubt were planted, and in time, Gnorrel said, the takers were founded. She said that if I wished to help, I should renounce the awakened and join the takers.

I said I would.

She said that Ellhrah, from the awakened, had been spying on the Takers. Undermining them, killing their agents, and converting their followers. Ellhrah needed to die. Only then could I join the takers, with that bridge burned. I swore I would do it. Nothing could stop the shapers from controlling the serviles outside of war. So war it would be. Nothing outside of war would make the shapers NOT MAKE THAT TERRIBLE TERRIBLE EXCUSE FOR ART! So war IT WAS!

---

End of Episode Six: The Map as it Stands: