Announcements - 2005/01 - In the Dark
Original Link (now dead) - http://ac2.turbinegames.com/index.php?page_id=318
January Teaser: In the Dark
The farmhouse at the edge of the forest had been abandoned almost since its construction. It had been built as a gift to the eldest son of the Adair family, a wedding gift, and every then-living Adair had taken a hand in its construction. It was a gift of love.
For fair-haired Conner and his new wife Laina, it was the fulfillment of a dream. They spent one cloudless summer there, and the house quickly grew into a home. Conner still sweated in his father's fields until dusk, but he also found time to work on projects of his own -- a plain table, a rough set of chairs, a box for firewood. His carpentry was unsteady but enthusiastic, and he spoke eagerly of attempting a porch as soon as the fall harvest was in. Laina also worked hard at carving a garden bed from the weedy soil. She planted it with herbs and spices, and Conner thought these greatly improved her tentative cooking.
But their dreams withered as quickly as the grass. As the damp cold of autumn sank into a bitter winter, Conner’s town-bred wife began to suffer from aches and chills. She gamely tried to ignore her growing weakness, deflecting her husband's concern with laughing denials. Then, late one evening, Conner returned from a walk in the hills to find Laina slumped over in her garden and blazing with fever. She could not be awakened. Conner carried her inside and laid her gently on their bed, then set out at a sprint for the hut of Shi Hotuari, an hour’s journey even if you knew the shortcuts. Old Hotuari was rarely summoned except to treat injured herd animals, but Conner could think of no help that was closer at hand.
The elderly Tumerok healer was stiff-limbed and slow of speech. But when Conner described his wife's condition, Hotuari demanded to see her immediately. He would not consider waiting for a mount or a wagon. Instead, he seized his walking stick, stuffed several handfuls of dried herbs into a dust-colored pouch, and dashed off into the dark. When Conner realized that Hotuari was not coming back and would not likely stop, he caught up with the Tumerok and they raced back towards the farmhouse together. It was almost a killing pace for the old healer, who stumbled and wheezed as if his lungs would burst. But somehow he managed to stay abreast of Conner Adair.
It was nothing less than heroic. Had Honauri’s herbs been able to revive Laina, it would have been the stuff of local legend. But when Conner burst through the front door of his home, frantically shouting his wife's name, she was beyond all such medicine. The fever had burned away her life, and her skin was growing cold.
Conner and his grief-stricken brothers buried his pretty wife at dawn. They could wait no longer, for fear that the plague might spread. After Conner bore Laina from her bed to her grave, he never again set foot in the house. He ignored his father's pleas to stay on the farm and traded his few possessions for a retired warrior's sword. On the second day after Laina’s death, he set out towards Cragstone, saying that he intended to fight in the great wars that were the source of so many rumors. His brothers pretended confidence in Conner's future as an adventurer, but each privately wondered whether he was leaving to seek his death or his fortune. As months passed, and no news of Conner Adair reached his father and brothers, his name was spoken less and less often. Laina's name was not spoken at all.
Shi Honauri, who knew too much of death and suffering, had not told Conner the truth. He had felt Laina's death minutes before her husband arrived on his doorstep; there had never been a chance of saving her life. But Honauri had gladly risked his own remaining years to run alongside Conner, hoping this would prove to the young man that they had done everything possible to save Laina. Honauri's gambit had failed, as he alone knew for certain. For he had felt Conner's death, too, mere hours after he bid his father and brothers farewell. And that was another secret that would perish with Shi Honauri. Conner’s family did not need to know that he had died on his own blade. Let them dream that their favorite son had lived for Laina's memory, instead of drowning in it; let them tell each other stories of his outlandish adventures in distant lands.
For Honauri, it was just another sorrow in the tyrant's hoard of sorrows that belonged to every true healer. But he was unprepared for the sorrow that he met a year and a day after Conner's death, for the unexpected stranger who would next occupy Laina’s deathbed. On that day, Shi Honauri learned to be grateful for the vast but limited sadness that life had given him.
* * *
Aun Tanua struggled, hand over hand, towards what he devoutly hoped would be his death.
The blizzard had not let up for days, maybe weeks. It seemed impossible that the cold could still bite after so long, that Aun Tanua’s raw and bloody skin still had nerves to feel the pain. But with every inch of progress up the White Mountain, Aun Tanua thought he felt another wisp of heat escaping from his body. The snow no longer melted when it settled on his skin. It blew away like dust.
Sometimes the cliff relented just enough to become a steep hill. At these times, Aun Tanua could brace himself against a stone or outcropping and rest his agonized body. But he was always struck with the certainty that to stop climbing was to fall, and then he would achingly resume his ascent.
There was no measuring his progress. Above and below, the mountain faded quickly into the swirling patterns of the blizzard. In the beginning of his climb, day had followed night, and night had followed day. But now the world was lit by a soft, sourceless light that was not quite between noon and dusk, a light the exact color and intensity of snow. For all that Aun Tanua could see or sense, the mountain and sky had become one. He no longer truly understood the difference. Yet as long as his hands continued to find purchase on the icy rocks above, as long as he could haul himself away from the abyss below, he had a direction and a purpose.
But… was he certain that he was still climbing? Or was he actually crawling downhill? As soon as he thought of this question, the rock face seemed to buck and sway beneath his grip. He gripped the cold stones in what he refused to call fear, and screamed words of defiance into the whiteness: “Mother Audetanga! I am calling to you! I seek the final judgment of the Aun! I am the last, Mother, and it is time for us to end!”
For a moment, Aun Tanua thought he heard the faintest whisper of an echo on the howling wind. But then his words were swept away like the bone-dry snow. Away, and… up. Aun Tanua had found a direction again. He climbed, painfully, inch by inch, in the direction that his words had gone.
* * *
Shi Honauri had woken to the lunatic’s shrieks in the middle of the night, and that first shock had nearly stopped his heart. When he gathered his wits and reached out tentatively to find the source of the sound, his fear increased tenfold. The stricken one was not raving just outside his hut, at Honauri had thought, but many miles away. His words were not carried by the winds, but by the spirits, and this meant the lunatic must be a powerful shaman. Powerful, mindless, and dying. Honauri saw at once the duty that had been thrust upon him, and he wept with the understanding.
Shi Honauri was not powerful. Once, he had completed the highest rites of passage and briefly answered to a different name. In the presence of the greatest living shaman of the Shi, he had heard the true voices of the spirits. He had grasped the nature of power, and seen the rightness of wielding that power, and known that much good would grow from it. And then he had turned away, willing himself to forget what he had learned. Honauri had found in himself the potential for power, and also the potential for peace, and he had made his choice.
But now, for the first time in his surprisingly long life—a life in which the recent, explosive success of the Shelter refugees was a brief epilogue—Honauri doubted his path. For how would he fulfill his last duty? How could he possibly kill the dying master who shrieked and raged inside his mind?
The fiery death rites of the Tumeroks – the oldest rites, not the corrupted ones -- had many purposes. Most were religious and symbolic. But there was also a practical need to ensure that a dying shaman left his body cleanly behind. What happens when one who speaks the language of the Animae -- of Mother Audetanga and cool-voiced Tanae and Hazahtu the Blind Eye -- what happens when such a master speaks the words of black madness in that secret tongue? Not many knew, but Honauri had seen it happen three times in his life. Even recently, hadn’t placid Manaua been seized by the Dark? And hadn’t one of the Old Places been devoured as a result?
Shi Honauri frowned at the thought of that disaster. His colleague Manaua had not held any great power, but his corruption had set Dereth ablaze. If this insane master had been touched by the same Darkness, Honauri must delay no longer. If there was an opportunity to strike a killing blow, it would come only once, and only within arm’s-reach of the master. It was more important for Honauri to put himself in the necessary position than to imagine how he might possibly achieve the deed.
Feeling slightly ridiculous, the healer slipped a sharp knife into the rabbit-skin sheath on his belt and set out into the night. He kept a measured pace, neither easy nor exhausting. With every step, he felt the earth trembling in suppressed horror. The rustling noises around him were made by small animals as they tore blindly through the forest, always in the opposite direction of Honauri’s strides. They were fleeing the master’s pain.
* * *
Aun Tanua had reached the peak of the White Mountain. He felt the gaze of Mother Audetanga and knew it was no illusion. His earlier sense of vertigo had vanished. So, too, had the icy rock face and the formless patterns in the wind-driven snow. Here was only that absolute purity which he had always sought in himself, and always craved as the destiny of his tribe.
Now he was that tribe, Tanua was the whole nation of Aun, and their shared destiny was at hand. He cried out: “Mother Audetanga! The time for your silence is past! The Aun have earned their final judgment! If you will not answer my prayers, then I will command your presence! You MUST speak to me!” Aun Tanua flexed his mighty will, whose force he had doubled and redoubled during the endless years of Virindi captivity. Everything that was Aun Tanua commanded great Mother Audetanga to do his bidding.
* * *
Far away, Honauri gasped in pain and tumbled headlong to the ground. It was a full minute before he found the courage to continue. For a moment, in some terrible way that he could not explain, the heavens had stooped beneath the earth. And the blood had flowed backwards in his veins.
* * *
Aun Tanua commanded. And Mother Audetanga obeyed.
You have traveled too far, Tan, to waste the last words of your tribe on such ultimate stupidity.
Aun Tanua grinned fiercely. “It took nothing less than ultimate stupidity, Mother Audetanga, to get your attention.”
The Great Spirits protect the balance of everything that is, or was, or ever can be. That balance is delicate. You know nothing of what you risk with your rash commands.
“Yet I commanded, and you obeyed.”
Only once, Tan. Never again.
“Then give me the judgment I seek! I am the last of my kind. I have murdered the innocent and defiled the purity that springs from Audetanga. Your blood drips from my hands and teeth. Now I offer my blood for yours. Take it, and end our pathetic story."
Do you command me to reveal the final judgment of the Aun? Will you endure that judgment, and submit to its will?
“Yes,” sighed Aun Tanua, grateful that oblivion was close at hand. He did not realize his error until too late. Having relaxed his will, even for a moment, Audetanga had once again seized him with her vast power. An unimaginable wall of anger struck Aun Tanua, blasting him from his tenuous grasp on the White Mountain. He hurtled away into empty space. Away and down, into the Dark.
Purity is mine, fallen Tan, and so is pride. I will not forget your arrogance. But if you seek judgment, you do not seek Mother Audetanga. You seek the Blind Eye.
Screaming and flailing, Aun Tanua fell.
* * *
As Shi Honauri drew closer to the dying master, he realized that he was retracing the steps of Conner Adair's last marathon. The thought did not comfort him. The forest around him had grown utterly silent. Honauri wondered if the last beasts had already escaped, or if they had succumbed to the twisting corruption that blossomed from the master's uncontrollable power.
Finally, Honauri burst from the forest. There was the old farmhouse, already sagging from neglect and decay. And there, in the snow-blasted fields beyond the house, a core of palpable darkness swirled and grew. At the center of that storm he would find the master.
Honauri strained with all his senses to see into the storm. He had to know more about the enemy he must destroy. But when he finally glimpsed that enemy's face, the last flicker of hope was extinguished in Honauri's heart. For the face belonged to Aun Tanua, the greatest Tumerok hero who had ever lived. His armor was ripped and slashed, and his skin was bloody and scabrous. But his famous blades were still strapped to his sides, even as he thrashed and rolled and clawed at the air. And Honauri knew there had never been a chance of striking a killing blow.
Bitterly, Shi Honauri drew his small knife from its sheath and threw it away. He watched without passion as the dark storm grew in intensity, as the void-born winds whipped dead stalks of corn flat against the frozen ground.
* * *
The Tumeroks did not speak to Hazahtu. There was no need, for the Blind Eye did not open for the comings and goings of life. It would open only once, in the last moment that would ever pass, and in that moment Hazahtu would see everything that had been created. When the eye closed again, there would be nothing.
Such was the doom of the Anima of Judgment, into whose presence Aun Tanua had been flung.
The blasphemous self-hatred that had borne Aun Tanua into Audetanga's domain had no power in this all-embracing Dark. Mother Audetanga had always been Aun Tanua's protector and guide, and he had abused those bonds to gain access to her realm. But Hazahtu owed him nothing, and he owed Hazahtu nothing. He might remain here forever without drawing the slightest notice.
Nevertheless, Aun Tanua spoke. "Hazahtu! Mother Audetanga has sent me to you! She demands that you grant me the last judgment of the Aun!" This was not true, but Aun Tanua was beyond caring about technicalities, and he doubted he could spur Mother Audetanga to any greater wrath.
The Dark remained absolute. The Blind Eye did not open. But Aun Tanua's jaw moved against his will, and an alien voice ground harshly in his throat.
Tan's words are false. Mother Audetanga hurled him from the peak of the White Mountain. He has been judged, and his doom is to fall -- always to fall.
"Then let that be the judgment of Tan-Nua, of Tan the warrior. But what shall be the judgment of Aun?" Aun Tanua fell to his knees, spreading his arms wide. "I have failed in all things. I seek only oblivion for myself. But there must be a purification for my lost tribe. Let my crimes be forgotten. Let my name be scoured from history. That which I believed and sought all my life will no longer be defiled by my failure. When Tanua is gone, the spirit of Aun will again be whole."
Silence. Then Hazahtu's grinding voice spoke again, but his words made no sense:
Tan's thought is flawed. He is not the last of the Aun.
Aun Tanua only stared into the Dark, uncomprehending.
There is no Aun. There is no Hea. There is no Shi. The Blind Eye looks for these things, and sees them not. Only Tan stands before him. Only Tan... and his master.
"His master?"
Tan has been mastered by a Darkness too mighty to perceive. He dangles from its strings and dances to its music. Only by the blindness of Hazahtu can this Darkness be seen.
Aun Tanua had long known that his murderous campaign across Dereth had served the will of the Dark. But... his prayer for extinction, for the purification of the Aun, had that too been contrived by his enemies? Was there no escape from his shame? He was filled with an emotion he thought he'd left behind. It was fury, the old hot battle-rage. He howled into the darkness:
"If there is any vengeance left to seek, let me be its instrument! Tell me the name of this Darkness! Is it Wharu? Is it Wharu?"
* * *
The ice-blighted field wavered and spun before Shi Honauri's eyes. Reality itself was shattering under the weight of Aun Tanua's agony. And the Dark was writhing its way free of the deep places of Auberean. It was spurting through the cracks in the frozen ground and seeping from Aun Tanua's bleeding wounds. It was forcing its way towards the Light.
But, suddenly, Aun Tanua's mindless howling ceased. And as Shi Honauri listened in awe, the tortured hero screamed in the language of the Animae: "Tell me the name of this Darkness! Is it Wharu? Is it Wharu?"
This was the opportunity that would not return. Shi Honauri leapt forward, scrambling and staggering as he raced towards Aun Tanua. His feet sank further into the ground with every step; the field had become a swamp of corruption. But he would not stop, and with his last strength, he flung himself forward and screamed a single word into Aun Tanua's ear.
* * *
Hazahtu's voice did not answer. But a single word blazed in Aun Tanua's mind, as if screamed by every Tumerok who had ever stood against the Dark.
KEMEROI!
"Yes," Aun Tanua whispered, astonished. "It is not Wharu. It is... kemeroi." He finally saw the true face of his nemesis. Aun Tanua's enemy was not the fearsome Anima of Corruption, whose insatiable rot and hunger ultimately fed the living. It was a thing far older and far more terrible than Wharu. The kemeroi had inhabited Wharu's shape and powers as one might put on another's cloak. Yet it was not invincible, for such a power had no true place in the world of mortals.
The bane of Aun Tanua could not die. But it might still be driven from this plane.
Now Aun Tanua, like Shi Honauri, understood his last duty. But he needed one more miracle. He needed passage into the lair of the kemeroi. Once, Mother Audetanga might have granted that blessing, but Tanua did not think that his lifelong protector would speak to him again. The Animae above Audetanga would not stray into her domain, and the Animae below dared not contradict her wrath.
But there was one Great Spirit, Aun Tanua realized, upon whom he had never called, and who must also hate the impostor. So he surrendered his last pride, and committed the same crime for which he had executed Shi Tawapuh, even though Shi Tawapuh had been innocent. He called upon Wharu. He prostrated himself before the greatness of Wharu, and praised the mindless hunger of his Olthoi children, and thanked Wharu for the eternal increase of their kind.
There was no answer. But the Blind Eye receded from Aun Tanua, and the Darkness became mere darkness, the absence of light. And against this mundane darkness, a great and terrible shape coalesced. It was a cloaked figure with a face of starvation and a body of bones. Aun Tanua had seen it in his nightmares.
"You come to me at last, my wayward child," the cloaked figure purred. "And now we may forgive each other's crimes, and strive together for the welfare of our children...."
KEMEROI! Aun Tanua drew his legendary blades. They glittered with purpose.
"You have been deceived," the figure warned. It drew itself up to its full, immeasurable height. "Do not spit on me as you spat on Mother Audetanga. Your kind has never pleased mine."
KEMEROI! The blade in Aun Tanua's right hand flashed and blazed with the awful whiteness of Audetanga. In his mind, a cold voice snapped, "You are not yet forgiven." And Tanua's heart leapt with unhoped-for joy.
"All will know that you praised me, Aun Tanua," the kemeroi hissed. "No Tumerok will ever forget that the last son of Aun stooped to kiss an Olthoi's lips."
KEMEROI! The blade in Aun Tanua's left hand was engulfed by the infinite blackness of the Blind Eye. Hazahtu's words surged through Aun Tanua, and his voice was like an eclipse: He-who-was-Tan can fall no further. Now it is illusion that must fall.
Aun Tanua stood erect before the kemeroi, the blades of Light and Dark in his hands, rage and redemption singing in his veins. The kemeroi laughed, not the laugh of an eternal Anima, but the cackle of an idiot child. And Aun Tanua realized that he had already won.
The last true-hearted Aun lunged towards his nemesis. His blades stabbed deep into the kemeroi's dark heart. But they shattered like glass, and then the full might of the kemeroi crashed down upon him, an endless avalanche of night.
* * *
Shi Honauri picked himself up, dusted himself off. The field was just a field. The sky was clear, and the stars all kept their appointed posts. It seemed that Honauri had struck his killing blow after all, if not with the knife he'd brought for the task. He hobbled painfully towards the fallen master.
Aun Tanua's body had been shattered almost as completely as his blades. His arms and legs were askew, their bones jutting through his skin like bloody kindling. A single great impact had driven his breastplate deep into his chest, leaving a metallic crater that still welled with bright red blood. Shi Honauri gasped, and tears sprang to his eyes. He remembered his first lesson as a young healer: he who bleeds also lives.
Rollout Article
Original Link (now dead) - http://ac2.turbinegames.com/index.php?page_id=311
January Guide: In the Dark
NEW CONTENT
- The new Consignment Vendors have arrived, and need your architectural assistance
- What hope for Aun Tanua?
- Someone shut the fence off in the rain...
SYSTEM CHANGES
Consignment Improvements
The new Consigment Vendors have arrived! The new vendors will allow players to sell treasure system items such as potions, armor, weapons, gems - pretty much anything unattuned you find in treasure, as well as crafted items. There are 3 tiers of shops, based on the character levels of the items found there. Cavendo, Hakata and Ondekodo will have two new shops; a weapon shop and an armorery. Those shops will be geared toward the level of the player in that region, so Cavendo only sells level 1 to 20 equipment, Hakata 21 to 35 and Ondekodo 36 to 50. The capital cities, Cragstone, Ikeras and Linvak Tukal have 4 new shops: a weapon shop, armory, tool and spellbinding shop and finally a curiosity shop. The curiousity shop is for all those rare goodies you find in your travels. The other shops in the capital cities are geared toward Hero-level players.
In addition to the new Consignment Vendor types, players will also be able to purchase Permits from the Merchant Guild Officer that allow them to list more than 3 items per vendor. Permits are available for 1, 2, 3 or 4 additional items This means you can list 4, 5, 6 or 7 items per vendor! The Permit will expire after 29 days, 18 hours, at which time players may purchase a new Permit.
Pet Improvements
- If a pet summon skill fails, the cooldown timer won't be triggered (note, this affects only skills; not pets summoned by items)
- Pathing AI for both pets and monsters has been improved in general
- Pet speeds have been increased
- Pets can now make a beeline to their target if the target is within sight and is close enough
- If your Pet is destroyed when a landblock unloads, you no longer be prevented from summoning another one (this was mostly an issue affecting Turrets)
- Turrets now obey /pet attack better
- Missile pets will only path as far as they have to in order to start firing
- Floating pets are less likely to become stuck on ceilings
- The Erobals have been reduced slightly in size to help them be more mobile
Accuracy/Evasion Scores Now Displayed
Your player examine panel now displays six new statistics:
- Melee Accuracy
- Melee Evasion
- Missile Accuracy
- Missile Evasion
- Magic Accuracy
- Magic Evasion.
Skills and items now display how many points they give to these. When affected by a magic enhancement that increases one of the six stats, the affected stat will be displayed in blue.
NOTE: items that directly increase Mastery, Grandmastery, or Paragon do not cause the numbers to appear in blue. For these, the icon in the Skill Panel is displayed in blue.
UI CHANGES
Multi-Row Hotkey Bar
Players can now resize the hotkey box to have up to five rows of hotkeys visible and active at the same time by dragging the top edge of the bar. Keyboard shortcuts to access the second row may be assigned in the Key Configuration. Hotkeys assigned to the second row will only work if the player's hotkey bar is at least 2 rows high (i.e. if the second row isn't showing, the hotkeys for it won't work).
Fellowship Members on Mini-map
- Fellowship members are now shown on the mini-map (full zoom mode)
- Markers are not drawn for individuals that are very close to the player
- There is a checkbox in the Options Panel to toggle this feature
SKILL CHANGES
- Some effect-stacking issues with armor and combat speed buffs (Encase and Impenetrability, for example) have been resolved
- All skills that reduce an enemy's accuracy (Blight, Blind Rage, Fling Sand, Maim, etc.) now work correctly in PvP situations
- The Tumerok Feral Intendant skill Leader of The Pack no longer incorrectly indicates that it lowers the target's damage.
- The reset timer for the Human Alchemist skill Blight has been reduced from 7 seconds to 5 and the skill has a new visual effect
- The reset timer for the Human Alchemist skill Blood Feast has been reduced from 10 seconds to 8
ITEM CHANGES
- The rare item Chromed Wrench now shows its "Horrible Affliction" enchantment in the description. The enchantment has always been there, now so is the description!
- Crafted Hammers are no longer identified as "Axes".
MISCELLANEOUS CHANGES
- Some quality and performance improvements to ambient sounds in the game
- Camera physics updated so that the camera no longer constantly adjusts position when colliding with monsters (including pets).
- The Fellowship mini-panel can now be re-sized with the mouse.
- Fixes for some unfair "Unfair Fight" situations
- The 'V' key was previously causing a large amount of client-side lag. This behavior has been fixed, and performance will be improved for players using "V" key functionality.
- When the player is standing still, the turn-left and turn-right arrow keys do not turn them as quickly as before. This is to allow players to make more precise turning maneuvers (such as while Surveying). Mouselook mode and the turning radius when running are unchanged.
- Players no longer look like they're flying backwards when they back up
- A bug was resolved which was causing items to become stuck in hourglass mode on the shortcut bar when they were moved in inventory
- Spikesharks have a better grasp of what it means to be out of vigor
- Monsters and pets will no longer try to fire missiles through obstacles
- The Pulsing Light no longer interferes with other NPC interactions if you've double-clicked it
