Apart from Al mentioning he hasn't been on the surface in "three years," he also mentions that Cherish was "what, 8-9 when I first found you?" in his letter. So yeah, unless somebody has been wiping the memories of both Al and Cherish and reincarnating Cherish as younger version of herself, then it's probably only been 3 years for him.
I had thought that it was 3 years since he was in the Warrens proper, not the surface, and that he found Cherish after entering the Warrens. (The latter especially because she wasn't in the flashback.)
Still, good points. I guess it depends on whose assumptions are correct.
Couple that with the "Ciro is the Silents" theory (or even just the "Ciro must have met Al multiple times if he has past-life memories of him to draw on" part of it) and we have established that one cycle takes place in, at most, three years, and likely much more frequently than that. If we can nail down how often Al sees Silents, and how long the "between-cycle" period is, then we can make a good guess at how long a given cycle lasts. Which could be important to know, considering we probably die at the end of each one.
Indeed. Depending on how many Cycles, each could probably be not much more than several months.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if Al making the Active Party was a "rare/never happened before" occurrence, considering it took both Ciro attempting to recruit him AND rolling a nat 20 to succeed.
Assuming a mean cycle length of 1 month, a duration in the Warrens of 3 years precisely, and a 50% chance of trying, the math suggests such.
It's interesting to speculate on how much of the Underside Al had ready access to. He mentioned bringing bodies to Mili's house, so either he was murdering villagers or he was able to sneak past Wilford to the Outer Underside. If that's the case, I wonder why he didn't climb up that ladder back to the Warrens, since he definitely wants to escape the Underside.
Perhaps he never saw it, or perhaps some traumatic experience occurred there. If I was about to try out a ladder, and a dead body fell down (for example), I wouldn't go up there. Or someone he trusted told him not to...
I also don't think Ciro dying that early in the cycle is a regular occurrence, and is likely one of a few major aberrations from the regular cycle that occur during Al's Story.
True. And a bit obvious.
Man, when your "last dying request" in a letter addressed to your foster daughter is that you want a dude straight up murdered, especially as a priority before the "escape the Warrens" mission you've been pursuing the last three years, you're probably serious about it.
See above.
LSS... the Chief said to "check or use" the LSS in the Greens, so it probably is something fixed there. Using it wasn't a given, so it seems unlikely to be the Revival Tube (if it was the Revival Tube, he'd know we'd have to use it to bring back Ciro, and it didn't really have much to "check on.") The only other thing in the Greens... is that big sphere thingy? Does it actually have a use?
Hm...
Well, either the LSS is that sphere and we should investigate it, or there's more than one LSS. I tend towards the latter for various reasons, mostly that I'm having trouble imagining what the LSS would be. Something Something Sphere? Ley Line Sphere, maybe?
As far as I can tell, Yaos died for intruding in the Warrens, or as part of some kind of Faustian deal. I still respect him for taking the shotgun to the face, but damn his maudlin ramblings that did not clear up anything about why he was down here, or how he got here, or what. I'd say the whole thing was a Big Red-Lipped Alligator Moment, but I think we're just not putting the clues together and/or future events will illuminate what the fuck that was all about.
I'd call him more of a Wacky Wayside Tribe.
Who will be foreshadowing something.
That said, it's a good question. We're one of the Siblings, so we didn't really come from outside the Warrens, we just thought we did. Al came from outside the Warrens, and hasn't died (though he does have that whole vampire thing that may or may not predate the Warrens.) Yaos came from outside the Warrens, and seems to have paid for his transgression with his life. Why Yaos, and not Al?
Some kind of deal, or maybe the method of entry?
Perhaps if we knew why Yaos's Soul Star gave MP regen and various gems and stuff, we could figure it out.
I'm REALLY PRETTY SURE KINDA that Yaos is a dude. At least, I don't recall FFS referring to Yaos with feminine pronouns at any point, and I think he did use masculine ones. Too lazy to check, gender is irrelevant.
He called Yaos a guy when people were confused the first time.
Remind me, what happened a fraction of a turn before we died?
We switched the perspective to Al.
I'm not sure what this did, in-character; maybe it let some of Ciro's vital essence seep inside Al to keep his spirit tethered to the world and stop it from reincarnating?
I'm really thinking that this is the thing we did different from every previous cycle. The branching point from which all other discrepancies arise.
Why do I keep feeling like pointing out that these things seem obvious?
Of course, depending on how long the Cycles have been going on...
Here's a question- when Riltia fell in the acid, Oric/Betweenford went all Deus Ex Machina to keep her alive in order to perpetuate the cycle. So why didn't they act when Ciro died before that? Were they unable (as he possessed his own Soul Star) or unwilling (they really do want him dead-dead) or were they trying but just offscreen? That whole bomb in the mailbox really could have been intended solely to get Al and Ciro's body out of Underside and into the Greens, where he could be revived. Implying they don't know about Al and his vampire revival that was already going to happen.
Or maybe there was something in the acid that acted as a catalyst, causing the mutation or letting it happen?
Did any other non-Illborn fall in? Maybe we should toss Milli's corpse in the acid pool (when our lives aren't currently in much peril and we feel like remedying that while performing science)?
@coming in from outside kills you:
Slog came in from outside and he didn't asplode into evil soul thing.
He was a mercenary. Presumably they have some way of getting hired without kasplodies.
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Topic: (ISG) The Warrens of Oric the Awesome ??? (Read 3968608 times)