Guild Wars 2

Well, the Pact fleet is about to go, and Logan wants us there. Would’ve made more sense for Trahearne to have sent the mail, seeing as we’re his second in command, but maybe he was busy, who knows?

Anyways, time for filler.

Eir: “Everyone, this is my son, Braham.”

(Umm…what “everyone”? There’s only three of us here besides you and Braham, and I already knew he was your son, despite my attempts to forget it.)

Zojja: “I can see the resemblance.”

(Oh please. Not even his red hair matches up with hers, and his face looks like he’s aged worse than her too. Get your eyes checked, Zojja.)

So, we mention that we’re looking for Caithe, and while they did see her, she quickly left without telling them anything substantial. They assure us not to worry, that Caithe, while rash and independent, is still trustworthy…sigh. If only we could show them that centaur massacre.

The good news is, we have the divine fire now. The bad news, we don’t know how long it’ll last, and we can’t perform the ritual again, that wax seal being a one time use. So, instead of rushing to the cave now, we’ll give it over to Marjory to meet us there with it, since Logan Thackeray has sent us a mail and we’re apparently at his beck and call now.

Sigh…to Camp Resolve.

The third and final trial involves gathering three vision crystal shards for Turai Ossa to fuse together. More Echo minions are around them, but with some sneakiness, we don’t have to fight them all this time around.

With that done, Turai Ossa’s echo fuses the shards and vanishes, leaving a torch of divine fire for us to wield.

So, now we must accompany the echo and protect it (according to the book, according to Marjory…err..).

So, our first trial involves helping him reclaim his throne from another ghost and several “Echo” minions, (basically re-skinned spectral weapons with more/different skills) as well as a few uniquely skinned siege worms.

The second trial requires us defeating Tainted Spirits (veteran versions of the Echo minions) while leading Turai Ossa to the end of the hallway.

So, time for another mini-fetch quest. Once that’s done, he breaks the seal and gives the book over to Marjory, triggering Turai Ossa’s echo to appear above.

Time for another series of mini-fetch quests in here. (sigh)

So we get a book titled “Fire of the Gods: The History and Structure of the Trials of Ascension” and bring it back to Ogden. He explains that the magic barrier and the divine fire probably utilize similar magic, since the Forgotten also served the human gods.

He’s also found a wax seal matching the symbol on the cave wall, which triggers when broken. He expects us to encounter an echo of Turai Ossa (the Ghostly Hero of the first Guild Wars), but is unsure of what comes after.

Before we can even start though, we need three relics with ties to Ossa to safely initiate the process.

So Marjory drew sketch of the symbol for Ogden, and he’s identified it as a Forgotten magic barrier. We don’t have the key needed to get in, but he’s got an alternative: Use a ritual to produce divine fire which could affect the door. It’s dangerous, but we have no other option.

Well, it’s been a month and a half, maybe two, since Caithe ran off with the egg. She’s probably found a way to Cantha or Elona by now while we’ve been waiting because of that magical door.

But we finally get a mail from Marjory, saying Ogden Stonehealer might be able to help us with that now, since we couldn’t have done that during the month long wait. Sigh.

Anyways, to the Priory, again!

Sous-Chef Seimur’s there, and he left the wards open for us to go back in. The staircase in the middle has also been left as is, so no need to re-open it. So far, so good.

Stealing the egg meant for us, deserting us twice (and don’t feed me that nonsense about the egg, she still could’ve come back after the fight was over), still no explanation for what she’s planning (and the revelation of Sylvari being vulnerable to control meaning she could be subtlely under it’s influence or fall too)…I’d say she can’t be trusted. My Sylvari would taken the egg back immediately, my Asura would’ve shot her and been done with it.

Good point. Basically, Trahearne was hoping for a preemptive strike to stop it before it could fully spread, but…it was executed badly.

How was he sure the dragon was there, in that random jungle?

After seeing those giant vines all over the place, he should’ve at least expected something like what happened to transpire, maybe have a back-up plan?

The only thing he couldn’t count on is the other sylvari on the ship suddenly turning on them…provided he isn’t under its influence or fell shortly after. I’m sure he wasn’t, or Eir would’ve gotten a nasty stab in the back…but who knows.

Answer : Because difficult doesn’t equal fun. And usually, difficult equals cheap gimmicks that just annoy/frustrate players.

Better option : Kill Faolain instead.

She was wearing light cultural armor, so any of those three. Although, she seems to not had any experience in fighting.

Our presence would not have changed the outcome, so no.

It was plainly obvious that Caithe’s current hairstyle came about as her way of “remembering” Wynne, or changed to that eventually due to that experience, just as Canach’s look had.

In the end, PvP is only good for reward tracks and certain dailies, since they messed up the PvE ones so badly. Without those, I doubt it’d be seeing quite the numbers it is now.

Answer : Yes, they are useful. Even though I have all 80s and don’t need them right now, they will come in handy if I decide to make another alt (unlikely, due to the awfulness of the NPE level changes), and they are surely useful to others leveling up. It’s a shame I can’t sell/mail them to others who need them.

That tail clearly isn’t his. It’s brightly colored and looked fluffy, indicating a female charr.

Likewise, I can’t bring myself to care anymore, because it’ll probably be more stupid twists for the sake of twists and bad cliffhangers.

The new dailies are just awful, especially on the PvE side of things.

- Daily (Insert region here) Forager/Logger/Miner : On one hand, you only need half the gatherings you used to. On the other hand, it is now tied to a specific region and a specific type of gathering node. New players are basically out of luck on this one if they start off in a region outside of the one needed for the daily, unless they already know about Lion’s Arch and its gates to the other regional cities (which is unlikely). And that’s assuming it doesn’t pick Orr or the Magumma Wastes.

On top of that, believe it or not, some of us either don’t care for/don’t like/don’t explore certain regions, so it can feel like a chore to go get this daily now, while the previous Daily Gatherer let you gather anywhere, any node.

- Daily (Insert Region here) Vista Viewer : If it picks Orr or the Maguuma Wastes, any player without characters at Lv70+ is outta luck (Unless they know about the vista at Camp Resolve in the case of the Silverwastes) The other regional vistas can be done in their capital cities which are accessible via Lion’s Arch…but newer players most likely won’t realize that from the get-go.

- Daily (Insert World Boss) : This is just stupid. Not only an it easily bar players due to their varying levels and or simply not knowing what/where it is, but it feels like a chore to have to look up the timers for the world bosses to spawn. Believe it or not, I don’t want to have to have my browser up on a timer while playing, tabbing between the two to make sure I don’t miss a world boss. That’s not fun. I don’t even feel like fighting world bosses normally. Sure, I might go to where one is if it’s mentioned in map chat, but I’m not going to spend my time waiting on one every day.

- Daily (Insert Zone) Event Completer : This one requires 4 events done in a specific map. This is bad, because once again, newer players (or ones without a high enough level depending on the zone or those who simply haven’t been to the zone required) may not be able to go wherever they need to for this daily. In addition, this brings a large amount of players into the area clearing events as soon as they pop up. While they often call it out in map chat, these will be quickly cleared by those with the waypoints closest, while those new to the area without quick access to these events will have to wait longer to get this done.

Compare that to the previous Daily Events, which required 5, but could be done anywhere. Why couldn’t we have kept that?

- Daily Fractal : Amazingly enough, this one remains unchanged or had its requirements reduced. But then…

- Daily (Insert Scale Here) Fractal : Apparently whoever made these new dailies thought fractals were so nice, they needed two daily choices specifically for them! And there have been time where both the Daily Fractal AND this one have been up, taking space for one of the other PvE dailies. Sigh. Depending on the difficulty scale, anything above Scale 11+ can become painful without agony resist. So newer players and those not accustomed to fractals are out of luck again.

Daily Recycler? Gone. Daily Dungeon? Gone. Personal Story Completer? Gone. A bunch of other dailies that I can’t recall for PvE? Also gone. Replaced by these annoying chores.

Oh, and you don’t get Laurels or Mystic Coins from the Dailies anymore, and the Monthlies are gone too. Seriously, what the eff?

The trailer was “meh” to me. After their last two missteps, the least I’m hoping for now is no more contrived cliffhangers.

I’ll admit…I’m torn on this one.

Really? Maybe it’s cause I’ve played an engineer, but I can usually tell what kit they have on at the very moment just from whatever skill(s) they’re using at the time. I don’t really see the point of this.

Seriously. I miss being able to solo/team queue up, then explore/gather while waiting for a match. And what little you did add to the Heart of the Mists doesn’t make up for it in the slightest. Where’s a guild bank? Why isn’t the Mystic Forge back?

To be fair, the queue times do seem to be much faster…when the queue doesn’t mess up and reset or just kick you randomly for no reason. But as it is now, I can’t say it’s really enough of an improvement for the things we can’t do now.

Ever since the update to Windows 8.1 (or a few updates after), the game client will occasionally freeze up or have moments where it drops frames and is unresponsive. Also, the shortcut icon now looks like a blank paper icon instead of the GW2 icon. Has anyone else had this happen?

I’ve already tried reinstalling the client, but nothing’s changed, and I have no idea what’s causing the drop in performance.

This thread’s title and opening post are worthwhile to me. +50…if I could. Sigh.

Topic. As of right now, me and 2 others keep trying to play together in toypocalyse, except we keep ending up in separate instances. Anyone else having the same issue? Is there a way to fix this?

Tranquilnelf.1258:

With regards to the birth of Nightmare Court and Faolain, it’s true the pressure to be perfect might have been quite a load for many Sylvari. However Faolain , in simply doing the exact opposite of what the tenets say rather than explore and experience life and then form an opinion truly indicates a spoiled teenage brat rebelling against the ‘house rules’. Her character is made out to be vapid and shallow

It would have been much better for her to be mellow and ambivalent to start with , and then as she sees brutality against her people, she feels that pacifism is not the way to go. The fact that Faolain’s character is so obviously racist and foul right from the start doesn’t help the story at all.

The sad thing is, this all had potential. Cadeyrn’s talk about Ventari’s tenets being too idealistic and not covering all facets of life is a decent point on its own, along with other bits like him witnessing Malomedies first contact with the asura, and being told not to kill krait hatchlings by Niamh, even with the knowledge that they’ll probably be a threat later, since “all things have a right to grow”. But in the end, Ventari’s tenets are all they really have to go off of for referencing other philosophies, and as we later see, his and Faolain’s alternative is “be evil, just cause we like that more”. Sigh.

I suspect they need to release mini storylets, short experiences like they did for Canache for SouthSun Cove. That supplementary material does help flesh out the story and atmosphere instead of putting too much under assumption.

Eh…I find the short stories more troublesome than not, as not everyone who plays the game will know/care to look for them on the site. That effort could be better spent putting/showing stuff like that in-game.

Oh, and I hate Vorpp more than ever . How can there be no atonement for what he did even today ??

Well, we don’t know. He could’ve later regretted his decision and reconciled with the Sylvari, or just buried the incident and stayed out of the public eye for the time being.

Ironically, him coming out and apologizing to the Sylvari could have been yet other chance to show Faolain’s and Cadeyrn’s personal gripes with the tablet, as the other firstborn would’ve probably forgiven him lightly, only for them to be in disagreement, due to his krewe’s experiments killing a number of them.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Seems like a good summary, thanks for putting it together. Hopefully Anet looks over this and considers all the weak points so they can improve their story telling in the future. Honestly this seems like a rough draft that got pushed out early without anyone reviewing it and pointing out the flaws.

Thanks for taking the time to read all that. I wish there was a way to put attachments between text so it didn’t look like a clusterthorn every post…but oh well…

Sariel V.7024:

When I explain away my findings to Marjory and give Faolain a free pass, while I’ve had personal experience that she’s a murdering kitten, probably incited the whole mess, and Caithe blithely followed along.

Yeah…that really, really annoyed me.

She’s been around for two years, and that’s enough time for her to develop from Caithe’s gf into something more sinister. But we don’t get much sense of her relationship with Caithe here, nor of Caithe’s feelings towards her, nor why she’s putting up with Faolain’s obvious bullkitten without calling her out at least once. If Faolain’s hold on her is abusive, shouldn’t we see more of that in their alone time?

Caithe and Faolain’s relationship is just inconceivable at this point now.

Before this, it was implied she was a sweeter person before turning to Nightmare later on, as the books/previous lore said.

Yet now we find she was always pretty foul from the get go. I get that they became close over the two years they traveled together, but it just doesn’t show. Why does Caithe love Faolain? Why does Faolain love Caithe? It makes zero sense to me at all here.

I know love between Sylvari is based to what kind of person they are, but these two just seem utterly incompatible now. Which is sad as this relationship was one of the reasons I liked Caithe back in the beginning.

Eh…no. It would leave them unused to the other maps, and thus unable to adjust to the gimmicks of those. And besides, more choices are better. Let’s not make PvP worse than it already is. Please?

So….what truths did we learn?

- Faolain was a prick who hated Ventari’s tenets even before going Nightmare, and she was apparently already friends with Cadeyrn after he awoke as well, which at least explains why he was willing to play second fiddle to her later in the Nightmare Court when she takes charge.

- We learned of one more firstborn’s identity: Wynne, a night bloom, who uses one of the new faces and has Caithe’s present time hairstyle. She also shows up nowhere outside of the flashbacks…hmm.

- Vorpp was one of the asura who experimented on sylvari back in the day before they realized that was a bad thing to do. While certainly presenting a darker side to Vorpp, it is irrelevant to what we’re going through these memories for. Also, this seems to imply that we’ll be confronting him about it later, since we can’t talk to him now. (Well, he’s at the Lornar’s Pass evac camp left over from the attack on Lion’s Arch, but we can only greet him, nothing else.)

- Wynne apparently knew a secret that could hold sway over all sylvari, according to Faolain. She became obsessed enough over this secret to try coercing Wynne to go with them, and when that failed, most likely provoking a fight with the centaurs, in which Caithe proceeded to help her slaughter them all.

Our sylvari heroine and race mentor, folks.

However, just as we were seemingly on the verge of learning anything really important, the vision ends so we don’t see how Caithe presumably got in, setting things up for yet another cliffhanger, without answering any questions brought up by the last one!

So, two cliffhangers, Caithe’s still got the egg, we’ve got no idea where she is, only of places she’s been, and no closer to finding out so far. Yet another irritating episode.

Well….discuss, I guess?

Back in the present…

“Wynne’s centaur friends turned on them. Things escalated, violently”.

Really? Just because Caithe was too stupid to realize that Faolain probably provoked them doesn’t mean our character should be that dumb too! Frak.

Revised answer: “A fight broke out between the centaurs and Faolain. She claimed they turned on her, but I think she provoked them first. Then Caithe and the others joined in, and it escalated into a massacre.”

See? Better.

Anyways…after that, we go check out the cave, but of course we don’t know how to open it. Marjory suggests going back to the Priory again to research that symbol so we can get in, since we think that’s where the last memory seed needs to go.

So, we’re going to head back to the Priory now and—-wait…that’s it?

…..That’s the end of the episode?!

Really?!

Grrrrrr…

Here, we can talk to Cadeyrn real quick before running off. He appreciates being able to take part in this massacre, and admires our work. Caithe responds that this was nothing to be proud of, but that sentiment rings hollow to me considering she willingly committed the brunt of the slaughter instead of opting to defuse the situation.

Anyways, back after Wynne. She runs up to a wall with glowing magical symbols, and disappears behind it. The memory ends there.

So, after killing Togonn, we run back to the refuge, where Faolain, Cadeyrn and company have Wynne surrounded while she’s weeping over her fallen friends.

Wynne: (sob)“Oh, my poor friends. I’m so, so sorry.”

Faolain: “Some friend you were. They gave you shelter so you could hide with them—from us!”

“Then you set them against us, and just look what happened.”

(Bullfrak, Faolain. They told you and Caithe she was there when you asked, she came out to see you almost immediately after you showed up, and you considered them beneath you despite them granting you the same courtesy, you prick. And then instead of just asking Wynne about what she knew, you tried to take her from there, undoubtedly so you could coerce her. And you obviously saw a chance to murder them when they offered to protect Wynne by provoking them first.)

“They might have overwhelmed Caithe and I, had my friends not happened along to help us.”

(Um, Caithe clearly did most of the work here.)

Wynne: (sob) “Stop. I can’t be here another moment. I won’t!”

Wynne runs off once more, this time south instead of north.

Faolain: “I don’t believe it. There she goes again.”

So, the last Windows update I had messed up the brightness, forcing me to use a different updater system (Samsung’s SW Update) to patch it out…but something in either of those two updates apparently messed with GW2 a bit.

Now, the FPS will drop sometimes, the client (and anything else that might be up) can freeze almost completely, things that I could do in the past without much stress (like having Firefox open for the wiki or listening to something, or readjusting the screen) can cause the game client to start slowing down/freeze up for several seconds…Seriously, I feel like it ran better on my older laptop with Windows 7…graphics card being the exception.

Anyone else had issues like this?

Togonn Windmane: “You cannot be allowed to escape after what you have done here.”

Faolain: “Caithe, handle this. Wynne’s run back to the refuge.”

Really Faolain? Did you not see him light two sylvari on fire with wind?! And you’re going to ditch Caithe to follow Wynne when she’s gone back to where the rest of your friends are anyway?

…Why does Caithe love this prick again? She certainly doesn’t seem to love her that much if shes going to leave her to a boss with powers beyond the normal centaurs we’ve fought so far.

Ugh, anyways, onto the boss fight.

Togonn Windmane’s main gimmicks are summoning earth elementals, wind walls, and sand pools. Both Togonn and the elementals have perma-stability, so the Basilisk venom on each 3rd combo hit and Scorpion wire are useless.

While at least one earth elemental is out, he’s invulnerable. The elementals themselves can inflict torment and summon magnetic aura, as well as create sandpools when they die, that remain for the duration of the battle.

The sandpools are formed by the elementals upon death, but Togonn occasionally summons them if you get close to him for too long. They don’t do much damage, but inflict cripple, weakness, and vulnerability.

Finally, the wind walls that spawn from the sides of the “arena”. This you have to dodge; these will hit hard if you don’t. Any of Caithe’s evade skills will do, and her #3 triangle twirl can reflect them (they apparently count as projectiles), but always be wary. The map will ping to indicate their spawning, but between everything else you’ll have to avoid, watching the mini-map and the field itself is troublesome.

Togonn himself can buff himself with swiftness and aegis occasionally, on top of all the other gimmicks. Another annoying thing is that he’ll go invulnerable in between phases when you’re damaging him, since the developers apparently thought being able to burst him down quickly wasn’t allowed. Sigh.

Now, cutscene time.

A big centaur comes out, and gets attacked by two Proto-Nightmare Courtiers. But this one summons a wind wall to blow them away, and lights them on fire!

So, Wynne ran off earlier just before the battle, so Faolain wants to track her down now.

Faolain: “If she wants a chase, so be it.”

As we go along the way, we see our Proto-Nightmare courtier “allies” have leaped into action, showing up to finish off whatever centaurs Caithe and Faolain didn’t murder.

“Die, animals!”

“Leave none standing.”

Faolain: “I told you they were savages!”

Says the one who called them animals, mocked their teachings, and clearly wanted a reason to kill them anyway.

“Wynne, come back this instant!”

We catch up with Wynne, and she’s obviously upset with us. Caithe tries to talk it out with her, (Yeah, rather late Caithe…) but Wynne wants none of it.

Wynne: (sob) “No! Leave me alone! what have you done?”

Faolain: “Now, you know we didn’t want any of this.”

Bullfrak, Faolain. You wanted this. Cadeyrn wanted this, and so did his cronies. I’m starting to think the only reason you guys really hate Ventari’s tenets is because it says you don’t get to be pricks.

So, Caithe knows that Faolain’s been insulting the centaurs and Ventari within sight and earshot. With this in mind, one would think that she might guess that Faolain provoked one of them enough to lash out, and that the proper response would be to break up the fight and apologize, right? I mean, she’s been the rational one, while Faolain’s clearly more run by her emotions…

Well, wrong. Her response is to help Faolain slaughter the entire village, Nekhii included!

And this is no regular mob rush: the centaurs themselves have lancers to knock you around (no stunbreaks, after all), menders to heal/buff their allies and inflict weakness on you (which Caithe has no vigor/active condition removal to counter), and they can immobilize you and shoot at you with arrows (Caithe’s heal does remove mobility reducing conditions and her #3 does reflect projectiles at least…though they’re still awkward to control).

So, just fill the murder bar and we’re clear to go, since we couldn’t just knock them out/disable them like we could with the asura in the last mission Asura experimenting on and killing our kind? We can be stealthy and knock them out. Centaurs who were probably provoked by Faolain first? Kill them all!

So, Nekhii has us come aside into her tent, while Faolain and Wynne are just outside, out of Caithe’s view, but not ours.

So, this is the part where Caithe apologizes for Faolain’s prickly behavior and will try to tell Faolain to keep a lid on that, right?

Well, no.

Nekhii warns that while peaceful, her people will defend themselves if they must. Caithe tries reassuring her that they’re just here for Wynne with no violent intent, but Nekhii points out that Wynne isn’t “property of yours to collect”, and “if you have no need for violence, why bring soldiers to the wastes?”

All the while Faolain can be heard muttering “You’ll regret doing that” to someone.

Caithe tries again, saying the soldiers are just a precaution, as the wastes are hostile and unfamiliar to them, but Nekhii points out that they have been the hostile strangers here, and that they can’t abide these tensions.

Faolain: (scream)

Maguuma Peacekeeper: “Stop!”

Notably, while the scream supposedly comes from Faolain, according to the NPC chat, the actual chat bubble seems to come from Wynne, who runs off at this point.

Caithe immediately wonders what’s going on, and Nekhii tells her to stay here and let her handle it.

But of course Caithe’s not going to do that.

So, Wynne shows up.

Faolain: “Well, look who’s here at last.”

Nekhii: “Ah, Wynne. Look, you have visitors.”

Wynne: “Caithe, Faolain! My friends here had ancestors who knew Ventari. They’re almost like cousins!”

Faolain: “(laugh) I am no kin to animals, and I’m tired of Ventari’s nonsense. You need to come with us now.”

(So now “confronting her” has changed from questioning her to coercing her to come with us…where? Back home? Or somewhere Faolain can force her to talk? And also, once agin Faolain has mocked both the centaurs and Ventari’s tenets right in plain sight and earshot of Caithe. Why does Caithe love this prick again?)

Wynne: “No Faolain. I go where I please, and just now it pleases me to be among friends.”

(And Faolain’s certainly not being friendly. For all her talk earlier about wanting the sylvari to be free to choose their own path, it seems to not matter if they have something she wants.)

Faolain: “You’ve already dragged us halfway across Tyria to collect you, dear.”

Nekhii: “Wynne, you may remain with us as long as you wish. As our guest, you are entitled to our protection.”

Faolain: “This is no concern of yours, my friend. Wynne is our sister.”

(Sigh…I swear, Faolain’s just begging to be trampled on.)

Nekhii: “Caithe, I would have words with you. Now.”

Faolain: “By all means, have words, Caithe. Just make our point clear.”

Can’t dodge them all, can’t reflect them despite them being called “explosive projectiles”, and they do enough damage fast enough to where even two of them focusing you can mean almost certain death if you can’t escape their range. You basically have to exhaust any blocks/invulnerability, or be able to CC them constantly. Such bad design.

The charging ones are horrible too, that hitbox is much bigger than it should be, and even if you try keeping them crippled/chilled/immobile, they sometimes seem to just remove the conditions at random as they’re about to charge/leap (although that could be nearby menders or that venom buffing them). It gets worse since that charge knocks you towards them and those “FGS rush” vine walls they leave, which also block projectiles. Basically, with two or three charging you at once (which can happen in fort defense events), you’ll usually get wrecked while being unable to do anything.

We meet up with the scout, Nekhii Burnthide, in the middle of the refuge. She doesn’t know where Wynne’s at either, but she’s sure she’ll be back, so we wait.

Faolain: “How do we know they’re not lying to us? Let’s just go track her down.”

Really Faolain? If they were going to lie, they’d probably just say Wynne isn’t here and tell you to sod off. They’ve apparently treated her well and are welcoming you and Caithe in as guests. This is once again why I don’t get why Caithe loves Faolain of all people. She’s almost always a prick.

So, Faolain lets us do the talking now. We ask Timurr Pacesetter about Wynne, and he reveals Wynne has been their guest, and even become a close friend with one of their scouts, Nekhii, who is at the center of the refuge.

As we go on, we overhear other centaurs talking.

“Look! They are like Wynne, like the ones nurtured by Ventari’s words.”

“It must mean something, to have the people of the Pale Tree among us now.”

However, Faolain is in prickly mode right now:

Faolain: “How could Wynn live among these animals?”

“She mocks us as simple beasts.”

“They are not what they seemed. Not so much like Wynne after all.”

(Seriously Caithe? You’re going to just stand there and let Faolain insult them? Why do I feel like she’s going to mess things up?)

“Our scouts have seen others of their people nearby.”

“What is happening here?”

(Uh oh…looks like Cadeyrn and company aren’t as stealthy as they seemed.)

Well, time for another trip down someone else’s memory lane. We meet up with Marjory there and find the spot to start.

We “rejoin” Caithe and Faolain nearing the centaur encampment.

Faolain: “I hope you don’t mind that I invited some friends in case we need backup here.”

(Said backup consists of Cadeyrn, three Shadowy Bulwarks, a Shadowy Warrior, and a Shadowy Sorceror. So basically renamed Nightmare Courtiers, since the Court doesn’t exist yet. Also, despite this supposedly having been shortly after rescuing the secondborn, Cadeyrn and his company are all clothed and armed. Okay…)

Caithe questions why they’re here, and Faolain says it’s in case these centaurs become hostile, which is reasonable after that incident with the asura. On the other hand, if they’re hostile, why would Wynne be amongst them? In any case, Cadeyrn and his followers scatter off amongst the rocks nearby, remaining hidden unless they’re needed to come out, which of course will happen.

So, we have to run over to Picaroon Scratch to clear it, then all the way past the Wailing Sands to reach the one tunnel that goes to the Far Silverwastes.

Take note that this tunnel is the only way there at this time, means to walk here, and apparently asking for a helicopter or airship to drop us off there is unreasonable to do.

So…how did the centaurs and everyone else that came here get here? Was the skritt tunnel that brought us here around back then too? Apparently that wasn’t worth explaining…

Returning to Camp Resolve, we question Priory Historian Gikki if there were any centaur settlements here. Apparently there was a tribe encountered by a firstborn sylvari in the Far Silverwastes. We’re then directed to Seraph Master Sergeant Heche, who might know how to get there.

She doesn’t, but then directs us to Ambassador Ikkit’ch of the local skritt, whose tunnels can reach even to the Far Silverwastes. But first, we need to get rid of the bandits in Picaroon Scratch.

Naive or not, the fact remains that Caithe could’ve tried to break up the skirmish instead and figure out what was going on (as she seemed to be the rational, levelheaded one up to this point). Instead, she joins Faolain in slaughtering the centaurs that she already knew Faolain held in low regard and would have no qualms killing. She also doesn’t question Faolain trying to take Wynne from there against her will. At best, she’s being incompetent at trying to resolve the situation. At worst, she’s a willing accomplice to murder.

And the whole “she’s in love” thing doesn’t work when this love is not really believable or shown. Why does Caithe love Faolain? Why does Faolain love Caithe? They just do, with no reasoning as to why or how they got close in the beginning. Especially with Faolain being such a prickly twig—right in plain sight.

And we return to reality there. We can talk with Marjory on what happened, and mention Vorpp being there in the past. Surely we’ll get to talk to him sometime later about that. I am curious to whether he got any further repercussions for that incident, or if he later regretted his actions and reconciled with the Sylvari.

Well, that’s not important right now, so back to the task at hand, pointing out the next place we need to go: The Silverwastes, to find a centaur refuge.

Now the two take time to have another conversation, while still inside. For all they know, Vorpp could be getting even more reinforcements, or preparing to blow up/seal the base.

Faolain: “No! where did it go? No! It got away!”

(We saw that Faolain. You saw him teleport out.)

Caithe: “Forget that monster. It’s time to go home. We have to get the injured to safety.”

(Rational choice. But Faolain’s not done…)

Faolain: “I don’t like being bested. I refuse to be anyone’s fool—not these horrible creatures’ and certainly not Wynne’s.”

(This again? Wynne hasn’t been in this entire mission.)

Caithe: “Stop obsessing. By now, Wynne is all the way out in the Silverwastes. And you’re not a fool.”

(So…Caithe knew what and where the Silverwastes are at this time. Okay… still, she’s being reasonable here.)

Faolain: “Wynne is guarding an important secret. No one person should control our fate.”

(Besides you, right? And, how is Wynne keeping a secret affect the rest of them? Unless she’s planning to use it…but from what we’ve seen, she’s shown to have the best interests of the rest of their people at heart so far. Although, dodging that question from Faolain didn’t help her any.)

Caithe: “My love, you really think she knows something she’s not telling us?”

Faolain: "I know she does. She said to Mother, “They can never know. It could exert unspeakable power over all sylvari.”.

“I must know what that power is. Once the sprouts are safe, you and I are going out to the Silverwastes to confront her.”

(Surely nothing will go wrong from this. Sigh.)

Faolain: “This…this is real life. Pain.”

(Faolain’s fall to darkness would’ve been more believable if she had started out sweet, then became bitter from repeated experiences such as this. Unfortunately, 3 missions to make her fall would’ve been too fast to be told well. Although, making her already a prickly thorn to begin with didn’t help.)

Canach: “Pain, humiliation, and eventually death. For us…and for them. Did you have to kill them?”

(At first I thought Canach was saying this to Faolain, until I heard Vorpp’s response.)

Vorpp: “Me? Oh! It was all in the interest of knowledge gained. You beings are an anomaly. It wasn’t personal.”

(You made it personal by killing a bunch of them in your experiments.)

Faolain: “(growl) I’m going to tear your ears off!”

“You…Don’t let it get away!”

However, Vorpp is obligated to survive to assist against the Invasive Weed later, so he teleports out the way we came in.

So, just sabotage a generator near him, and knock him ou—oh drat. Spotted.

Well, while his shield blocks knock out attempts, it doesn’t block stabbing and cutting, as he and his krewe find out the hard way. Oddly enough, his reinforcements compose of Arcane Eye agents, while all the previous enemies are golems and Statics krewe members. Hmm…

Either way, getting him to half health via a knock out attempt or stabbing triggers phase 2, where he now has anti stealth golems near the shield generators. You can lure them away by messing with the holding cell controls, then do what you did before last time. Oddly this time, I managed to pull it off. Doing so also causes explosions everywhere that kills the rest of his krewe…okay. Time to free the newborns.