Ruts vs. Battlespire CH7: A Wizard Hid It

By Rutskarn Posted Wednesday May 4, 2016

Filed under: Lets Play 16 comments

That's probably for the best.
That's probably for the best.

I think I’ve hit on my primary stumbling block in this game: I have no idea where I am, who anybody’s talking about, what’s happening, why it’s happening, or how I go about fixing it. In this exciting chapter of Ruts vs. Battlespire, nearly one of these mysteries will be revealed.

Some of you may remember that the last post ended with me talking to a dremora. Never a fun time, not hardly, but it’s the first reasonable and intelligent conversation I’ve had in this place. I, for one, appreciate that unlike every other monster in the game he didn’t spring an ambush the moment dialogue was concluded. Anyway, once we’re done talking I stab him to death and move on. I know what you’re going to say, and the answer is no; he didn’t have anything good on him.

Nothing left to do now but backtrack. I won’t be sad to see this giant spooky shadow cavern go, but I admit it’s been enriching; I’ve learned some valuable lessons in this room full of walkways. In addition to the usual data regarding my present attention span and degree of masochism, I’ve picked up a hot gameplay tip, which is that in this game sometimes you get stuck in a walkway and what happens next is between you and your therapist.

Or counselor. Let's not blow this out of proportion.
Or counselor. Let's not blow this out of proportion.

I’ve also noticed that every so often, in this chamber and outside it, you run into floating little bluish-purple things that you can’t select or pick up but that vanish when you move through them. At a loss for what they do, not easily finding the information in the manual, I tried asking my cousin–he says that if you get sixty of them in an hour while playing with the sound off it unlocks Kratos as a playable character. Then I asked the internet, which is also pretty trustworthy, and it said the floaters give you health and magicka. Considering I don’t use magicka, am immune to most damage, have slow AND quick health regeneration, and pick up a dozen restoration potions per room, I’m going to go ahead and file these along with bulk-mailed Carl’s Jr. coupons. Most of the time I don’t need them, but every once in a long, long while, I still don’t need them.

I don’t know if enemies are regenerating, per se, but I do seem to get into scuffles here and there and I’m not uncovering much new ground. Remember how I mentioned dremora throw their big explosions around and accidentally kill allies with them? Well, I’m reasonably confident I’ve seen one dremora friendly-fire himself to death with eager magic bursts before I got within halitosis range. He just started zipping in anxious triangles like a goosed Roomba, faced a wall, let loose a blast, and disintegrated instantly. All this in the time it took for me to round a corner and start moseying up into position. Gotta say, sowing death and destruction isn’t much of an ego boost when you feel like all you’ve done is give them a head start.

There’s got to be more to this Battlespire somewhere. I’ve hit the highlights, the obvious tourist destinations–the big pit of nothing, the room that pointlessly loops after a jumping button puzzle, the lava zigzags of merciless inconvenience. I’ve seen the sights, accidentally spammed the doomsday buttons, and looked for pants in all the wrong places. Now it’s time to find the overlooked Battlenooks and Spirecrannies and figure out how to secure a ticket home.

I finally uncover another tunnel, another mystical glowing blue anchor that I authoritatively meddle with, and stumble on the Star Galley Chamber. There’s a couple slots that fit these giant herniating cogs I’ve been lugging in my new-but-already-strained pockets, plus a button, plus–as is the local idiom–a purple ode to the button’s functionality.

I hope I never meet this Clearasil Vagisil guy. He seems really immature.
I hope I never meet this Clearasil Vagisil guy. He seems really immature.

A little more prodding and I discover something truly novel: a living human being. No longer must I sort this plane’s mortal denizens into the naked and the dead; now I’ve got a living person who I’m sure I don’t want to see naked, and–after we’ve had a short conversation–only sort of want to see dead. Please meet Clarentavious Deliciousness, Button Artisan, Unpublished Poet, and Professional Questgiver.

I'll charitably guess that my lack of productive dialogue options stems from my low INT, but I'd also accept 'I'm screwing with him.'
I'll charitably guess that my lack of productive dialogue options stems from my low INT, but I'd also accept 'I'm screwing with him.'

He’s not happy to learn that there’s no rescue party coming for him. Luckily he’s got very specific instructions as to what I should do to save us, and as a seasoned mage and warrior himself, he’s prepared to stand here doing absolutely nothing for as long as it takes. I better make rank for this or I’m gonna go across town and see if the Mage’s Guild needs a poolboy.

NEXT WEEK: THE END OF LEVEL ONE?

 


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16 thoughts on “Ruts vs. Battlespire CH7: A Wizard Hid It

  1. Lachlan the Mad says:

    Aw man, now I want a stove for cooking stars.

  2. Sunshine says:

    I’d expect a medieval/magical fantasy setting would phrase it “You are over-encumbered” or “You cannot carry more burdens,” but no, it’s just “no more stuff”.

  3. Mersadeon says:

    Erm, I think something worked out wrong, the article has no text before the “Continue reading” thing if you look at it from the frontpage.

    1. Nimrandir says:

      Based on what the series has told us about the game, that seems appropriate.

    2. Rutskarn says:

      Was a mistake. Fixed.

      To be honest, I spent all yesterday on the phone with my ISP. “All” of yesterday is unfortunately not hyperbole.

      This meant that by the hour I actually got to write and post this I was biologically a pond slime of some description, and found the wordpress interface, typing, and respirating oxygen uncommonly troublesome.

      1. TMC_Sherpa says:

        I know right? Stupid trees and their corruption of the environment.

        Anaerobic metabolism for life yo!

      2. Mersadeon says:

        I gotta say, whenever I read a tweet about your horrible ISP problems I’m always taken aback. I mean, America having internet and customer service THAT bad is just weird from an outside perspective.

        1. Lachlan the Mad says:

          I’m an Australian, and I lost my internet for a month last year due to shitty customer service (turned out the problem was literally that my house’s cable had been unplugged at the exchange during a network upgrade and never plugged back in). Here the problems are twofold:

          (a) Our attempt at a National Broadband Network got turned into a political football, which was a fucking stupid idea no matter what your party alignment is. Party A proposed an NBN when they were in government and started building it, but Party B proposed their own NBN plan, and when Party B won the election they spent two years trying to stop the Party A plan and start their own plan, meaning that next to no progress was made. My internet went out because the suburb I was living in was still on the Party A plan even after Party B reached power, but the huge delays caused by the political changeover meant that the NBN was being thrown together as fast as possible by kinda dodgy contractors so that it could still be finished on schedule.

          (b) Our country’s first phone company, Telstra, was privatised a while back, and while the privatisation has mostly worked out okay, Telstra still holds the government mandate to keep the lines working. This means that if you go through an internet service provider other than Telstra, you need to jump through hoops to get your lines fixed — you call the ISP, the ISP calls Telstra, Telstra mucks about for a while without telling anyone what’s happening. I got lucky in that my ISP has bloody good customer service, but I still wound up spending hours in the Telstra phone system trying to avoid their bullshit of “you have to talk to your own ISP first”.

        2. We got hit by lightning a few years back and our DSL modem sacrificed itself to protect the router. It was cheaper to upgrade to UVerse than to get a new modem, but man, what a freaking ordeal, including having a tech lie and say the install was complete when it wasn’t. Granted, I live in a house that’s old enough to still have some 4-prong phone jacks, and the line was too old to support a better speed but the crap they tried to pull, wow. New line needed, sure. House isn’t grounded, yeah, NOPE, just not grounded in the way the tech was used to (and making that tech happy would have been a couple hundred bucks in electrician costs).
          Apparently AT&T got rid of most of their support who actually had a clue during the recession (my godmother just had AT&T out and they tried to convince her they couldn’t upgrade her DSL line because her computer was too old). I’m firmly convinced Comcast support never had much of a clue given our 3 year saga over “why the frack don’t we get these 4 channels that we should” which ended up being a bad line splice and took multiple calls to Comcast VIPs before we got a competent tech out.
          According to some of the tales I’ve read over on the reddit tales from tech support, quite a few of the communication companies have a (possibly unwritten) policy to send out the idiot contractors first and only use good techs once the contractors fail and the customer gets angry.

      3. “I spent all yesterday on the phone with my ISP” ooh, is there a small story/rant there? Please do tell.

  4. Steve C says:

    You know if you were a real mage, you too could friendly-fire yourself to death with eager magic bursts. I feel like we are missing out on that suffering axis.

    1. MichaelGC says:

      But isn’t he immune to magic damage? :D (I mean, I’d go back and check but it seems like a fair bet assuming such a thing is at least possible in the game…)

  5. Stu Hacking says:

    That is a swording technique I’m not familiar with… Kick-fencing?

  6. Sunshine says:

    Something about that helmet is focusing your character’s bewildered/panicked expression, so it looks like he’s thinking “I have no idea what’s happening and it’s far too late to admit it.”

  7. Blackbird71 says:

    Hey now, the two-for-one “Six-Dollar Burger” coupons from Carl’s are always welcome (but I do usually end up throwing away the rest of the sheet).

    This is actually the first time I’ve taken a close look at the title image for these posts – at first I was curious where you had managed to find a font to match the “Battlespire” logo; then I realized what you had done – nice job appropriating letters from “Battlespire” to form “Ruts v.s.” I especially like the upside-down “A” as a “U”. It took me a little while to figure where you got a “V”; unless I miss my guess, cut, rotate, and paste of the tails from the “E” and “S” out of the middle? All around, well done.

  8. Daemian Lucifer says:

    I know what you're going to say, and the answer is no; he didn't have anything good on him.

    But did he have any bags?

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