Understanding the story

[Psyringe]

I just finished the game, and liked the story, but I'm not sure if I understood everything. Some of the scenes seem quite open to interpretation, and they are not presented in chronological order, which makes the story harder to understand. So I created a topic for discussing the story elements. :) Here's how I understood it:

1. It's a story about the fall of a civilization. Main actors are a "death priest", a "high priestess" (associated with life and light, so she symbolizes different aspects of the religion as the death priest does), and a worldly "leader" figure in red robes.

2. The priest, who is apparently also an alchemist, discovers that a yellow mineral can be melted into a glowing liquid and filled into a vial, which can then be used as a light source. He shows his invention to others, who adopt it eagerly.

3. The priest discovers that the light from the vial can grow a strange plant. He brings the plant to the priestess, who feeds its juice to an ailing old man. The old man is suddenly healed and full of energy.

4. The vial liquid and the plant are mass produced. A large mining operation provides rocks of the yellow mineral, and smelters are built at several locations, for producing and bottling the liquid. Large fields of the plant are cultivated, though people also grow it in pots in their homes. Civilization flourishes.

5. The priest refuses to drink the plant juice, and even scolds a kid who wants to bring the plant to its parents. It is not clear to me why exactly the priest rejects the plant. It is conceivable that he, being tasked with caring for the dead and sending hem on their final journey on the river, sees the plant as something that upsets the natural order of things, as people don't seem to die any more.

6. In a scene that I do not understand very well, an old man (possibly the same old man that was healed in (3)), appears in the priest's cave. He is ailing again, can't walk without a stick, self-incinerates (?), and dies quickly. Something that looks like a poisonous gas seems to emerge from body. It is unclear whether the death was caused by (a) withdrawal, the man may have stopped using the plant, (b) an overdose, or (c) is just a "regular" effect of drinking the plant juice over a long period of time.

7. More people die. The poisonous gases spread. Blame is put on the death priest for discovering the plant, although he did object to its mass usage.

8. Some people try to flee from the area, but the leader does not allow that. Instead, the people build houses high up in the trees, probably to escape the gas, which seems to be heavier than air. In the far south of the country, people grow "natural" food again.

9. The death priest, now old and frail, appears before the leader. The leader tries to thrust the plant upon him, but he refuses again. During the dispute, the leader's vial crashes. He kills the priest and takes the priest's vial. There is a lot of room for interpretation here. I believe that the priest informed the leader that he (the priest) will die soon and will have to choose a successor, but the leader did not want to lose the priest's knowledge and skill in the civilization's fight for survival. Hence the leader tries to force the plant upon the priest, so that he would live longer. As the priest keeps refusing, the leader loses his temper and kills him.

10. The priestess discovers the dead priest and (for unknown reasons) places pebbles of the yellow mineral around him. The priest's angry ghost emerges from the dead body, apparently accompanied by the poisonous gas (although the priest never drank the plant juice, so where does it come from?).

11. The ghost attacks the living and spreads the poisonous gas. While soldiers can apparently shield themselves from the gas by igniting blue fires, there does not seem to be a way to harm the ghost.

12. At some point between (7) and (11), it is apparently decided to put the population in baths of the yellow liquid, which apparently preserves them in some sort of stasis. I suppose the plan is to save the population from self-incineration and/or the poison gas and/or the priest's ghost. The mechanism to re-awaken the people is hidden behind a complex lock with a six-part key. The parts of the key are given to the leader, the priestess, and the heads of other population groups (probably craftsmen, farmers, etc.).

13. The player emerges from one of the baths. It is not clear what woke them up. It seems that all attempts to survive, apart from preserving the people in baths, have failed, as there is no other living soul anywhere, though the priest's ghost still roams the area.

14. The player retrieves the six parts of the key, and discovers how the priest was killed, which puts the priest's soul to rest. The player opens the lock and gets to make a final decision: They can leave everything as-is and leave, rowing their boat into the sunset (which is possibly a death ritual), or they can reawaken the people. In case of the latter, the culture will flourish again, as the ghost has been put to rest, the poison gas has dispersed, and the people will know not to drink the plant juice again.

15. In conclusion, my interpretation is that the plant, while healing ailments, has a long-term effect of spontaneously killing the people who ingested it. This explains why many of the skeletons in the game look like having died a very sudden and surprising death. It seems that this effect can be prevented by reverting to "normal" food, so the civilization would have survived normally, but they could not find a way to deal with the priest's ghost. So the player must put the ghost to rest before the people can be reawakened.

So that's how I understood the story. Did I miss anything? Does anyone have a different interpretation? Please add your thoughts. :)

[MASTAN]

FattM eredeti hozzászólása:

1) Why did they preserve themselves in the liquid? Was it before or after they started living in the trees?

I think that their world became so polluted by black smoke/lava patches that people decided to wait until nature will heal itself in the absence of people.
Some thoughs on the matter:

- People processing amber pollute nature. They dumped wastes in some stone containers, sun priestess has to clean surrounding area by closing lids. Also, achievement name "Environmentally Concious - Stopped the polution of the past" suggests that.

- Some pictures show that because of black smoke people were forced to live on trees above ground(greenhouse area) and when we(sun priestess) get there there's no black smoke left. Mostly such areas left are stone containers and very few lava patches(where nature didn't yet heal itself).

- Also, black smoke comes from bodies of people who died of plant overdosage(or postpoing death?). Not sure about that kid, though, whose death was complete surprise. Maybe he also lived very long without aging due to plant effect.

- Blue vial's achievement is called "The Vial of Oth Makail". Who was he, I wonder. Was he one of the priests? What's that vial is made of? While normal one contains amber, this one contains blue liquid though amber flasks fill it too. Blue lights suggests it has something to do with blue stones which when being lighten in certain areas create protective field against evil.

- Secret cave has this stone slab. Not sure what it means though:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1336471520

BTW Steam cards reveal official names of priests:
- Warden of the Hunt (fish)
- Warden of Construction (hammer)
- Warden of Life (star)
- Warden of Death (skull)
- Warden of Soil (leaf)
- Warden of Time (hourglass)
- Warden of Transport (wheel)

[sharondornhoff]

I would add to Psyringe's summary that there was a lot of personal subtext to the relationships between the life, death and hunt wardens. The life warden and death warden were twins, and the former was romantically involved with the hunter. Her brother, despite his important role in society, was excluded from the Council that governed the valley. He didn't like being left out of major decisions, but the morbid nature of his work (ritually sending bodies along the river, then storing them in stone caskets) made him too unpopular.

When he first discovered the yellow liquid, the death warden couldn't present it to the Council on his own, so he elicited the help of his sister's boyfriend. With both the hunt and life wardens in favor of using the cylinders, the other Council members were convinced of its usefulness. The death warden was pleased that his discovery could be put to use, but also a bit jealous that the hunt warden was claiming the limelight that should have been his.

The death warden continued his research, perhaps still hoping to earn a place on the Council. He discovered that a plant - possibly one already known to have medicinal properties - could be supercharged by the yellow liquid, making it capable of healing any injury and even keeping its consumer young. He revealed this to his sister, the valley's chief doctor, who tested it on an elderly patient. The enhanced plant made the sick man both healthy and young.

She and her boyfriend presented this discovery, too, to the Council. Once again, the hunt warden hogged some of the glory that rightly belonged to the death warden. Convinced that the plant's medicinal value was great - and probably tempted by the notion of eternal life - the other Council members agreed that the plant should be cultivated. The soil, transport and construction wardens worked together to create fields of the plant, mine and smelt the yellow mineral, and deliver regular shipments of all these resources to the population. Many citizens also grew the plant in their homes, to have it readily available in case of injury.

Down sides to these changes began to emerge. With fewer people dying of illness, age or wounds, the population soared, necessitating more construction of homes and ritual sites. The death warden had to let his assistants go find other work, as only the most drastic of injuries resulted in death anymore. The smelting of the yellow rocks produced a nasty toxic gas, that polluted the area. More of the plant had to be consumed to ameliorate the gas's effects. The miners and smelting-crews took more risks, walking across hot ground or clambering around on rickety wooden scaffolding, confident they would be healed if injured.

The death warden, displeased with how society was changing and resentful of the Council not giving him the credit he'd surely earned, sourly refused to consume the plant to stave off old age. He'd come to see it as "unnatural" ... especially when he saw a little kid using it to remain a child forever, and when he saw what happened to the bodies of the rare few plant-users who *did* die by mischance. His disgust for his own discovery peaked when the life warden, in treating a child who'd been taking the plant for decades, witnessed the effects of an overdose: the patient's true age caught up with him, his flesh evaporated into more of the toxic gas, until only his skeleton remained. Horrified, the life warden rushed the body to her brother, then told the Council of her little patient's terrible fate.

Set in their ways after decades of prolonging their own lives, the Council didn't want to hear it. The hunt warden, especially, had enjoyed being young and fit - essential traits for a hunter - and didn't want his lover, the life warden, to become old either. He, himself, had lost a family member to drowning once, and didn't want death to claim another life in the valley ever again. Accusations flew, and the death warden *finally* got his wish of being a part of a Council meeting ... but only to face the bogus charge that he'd deliberately contaminated the plants in an attempt to make everyone give up their immortality, thus restoring his office as the valley's mortuary-overseer to prominence. The life warden, shocked that her associates would turn on her brother, was unable to prevent them from sentencing the death warden to prison.

Overdoses continued to strike people down, starting with the sickly, and with the miners and others who had used the plant heavily in their dangerous work. Without the death warden to seal away the bodies, and with fewer workers tending the polluting smelters, the toxic gas levels built up to deadly concentrations. Some of the people wanted to evacuate the valley, but the Council - the hunt warden in particular - would not allow it. Villagers fled to the trees, above the level of the gas, while the Council isolated itself in the ritual buildings that rimmed the low valley. Greenhouses were built to shield the soil warden's crops from the gas, and gas-proof tunnels constructed to transport resources underneath the contaminated areas.

Such precautions couldn't stave off catastrophe forever. The Council struggled to find an answer. Meanwhile, the imprisoned death warden continued refusing to consume the plant and prolong his own life. Fearing that the aging prisoner would die, the hunt warden - perhaps hoping the captive might come up with a cure, perhaps fearing his lover would never forgive him if her twin died in chains - tried to force the death warden to eat the plant, thus staying alive and proving he'd come around to the Council's way of thinking. When the death warden still refused, a fight broke out, and the hunt warden murdered his lover's twin. He switched vials and covered up his crime.

The life warden soon came to visit her brother in his prison cell, and found him dead. Knowing a little of her brother's ritual practices, she encircled his body with stones, intending to lie down beside him in a customary funeral rite for twins. But before she could finish her duty to her kin, the death warden's murdered spirit arose as the Black Spectre, seeping the toxic gas he'd unwittingly fostered with his discoveries, and able to inflict the wounds his enhanced plants had healed. Terrified, the life warden fled, never realizing her brother had been murdered rather than died of old age.

Although the trees had provided refuge from the passively-drifting toxic pollution, the Black Spectre was another matter: enraged at everyone who'd used the plant or heeded the corrupt Council, it attacked people every night and haunted the forest shadows even by day. The time warden's blue pillars - a mystical technology that pre-dated the yellow liquid, and which had been of some value against the toxic gas - could keep the Spectre at bay, but not vanquish it. The hunt warden, determined to protect his people - and cover up his crime - shot arrows at the Spectre from the pillars' shelter, buying time for others to flee from its attacks. While this only inconvenienced the creature, it was hailed as a heroic deed, and helped solidify the hunt warden's status as the valley's leader.

Before the plant made it unnecessary, the life warden had been using a variant of the yellow liquid to put sick patients into suspended animation, to await a cure. Now, with the Black Spectre and the gas jointly making the Valley uninhabitable, the Council hit upon this as the only alternative to evacuating the region. Great numbers of preservation-vats were constructed, enough to hold the elite and respected of society. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough of the variant liquid to preserve everyone: a fact the Council kept from the ordinary villagers until the day of mass hibernation dawned. Had they admitted the truth, as the compassionalte life warden had recommended, the poor citizens could at least have fled the valley; however, she was out-voted, as the other wardens feared the workers would desert at once if told, rather than keep fashioning vats and mining yellow rocks until the last minute.

When the time came, the common folk initially thought little of it when the well-off and the privileged began gathering at the high temple. But when the elite sealed the tunnels behind them, leaving them no way to retreat from the choking gas, the poor workers of the valley were doomed. Some died in their homes, others at their workplaces. Some died embracing their children, or vainly trying to shield them from gas or Spectre attacks with their own bodies. A mob of them managed to dodge the gas and reach the hibernation-chamber, only to find the great doors sealed and impenetrable to their picks and hammers. As villagers died, their bodies - long permeated by the plant - were instantly reduced to skeletons, and the fabric of their clothing would soon rot, leaving only a few bits of leather buckled to an occasional body.

As for the Council, some of them followed the hunt warden into the main hibernation chamber, where he claimed the highest of biers for himself. The life warden - traumatized by her brother's death and resurrection, and appalled by the decision to write off the common folk - refused to remain by his side. Rather, she volunteered to join the time and transport wardens in a subsidiary chamber on the far side of the river, to await their automatic revival. Keys to unlock the main hibernation chamber were also left in secure locations around the valley, and would be used to unlock the main chamber once the toxic gas had time to dissipate. In the rush to arrange everything, one of these pieces was lost: left lying beside the body of one of the life warden's assistants, who'd perished on the way to its intended location.

Originally, the plan was for all three to awaken at once, so the life warden could revive the populace and the transport warden could open the tunnels to get her to the main vault. The time warden accompanied them, to set the mechanism that would revive them. But what no one had counted on was that a rockfall from the subsidiary chamber would crush the transport warden's vat, killing him in his sleep, and damage the timing mechanism. The time warden awoke alone, and was unable to revive the life warden.

Although he eventually did reach the hibernation vault, the time warden's own solo adventure in the valley didn't go as well as the life warden's would. The gas was still thick enough that he wasn't able to open the tunnels, and his attempt to retrieve a powerful item he'd been working on - the blue cylinder - only resulted in the breakage of its chamber's stained glass door. The Black Spectre later scattered the pieces of glass all over the valley, using the power to teleport things which both it and the other ghosts which now haunted the region had developed. As for the time warden, he was fatally poisoned by the gas, and the ghosts - sensing that he had one of the pieces that could unlock the vault and free their people, who didn't deserve to suffer for the Council's bad decisions - transported him to the hibernation chamber. He lived just long enough to place his own key piece, then died and disintegrated into bones and vapor.

When the life warden's timer finally did go off, she'd been in hibernation much, much longer than originally intended, and her vat had been slightly damaged by the rockfall. She was alive, but her memory had been disrupted, leaving her with amnesia. It would take careful study of the artifacts and memory-recordings around her for her to discover what she needed to do, and a psychic nudge from the Black Spectre - a creature which, although initually mystified and irate about her presence, eventually realized that it had known and loved her in life - to fully restore her identity and reveal the truth of how her twin had died.

[MASTAN]

About that blue vial. I just found that steam smile :oth: is a picture of ghost, see https://www.steamcardexchange.net/index.php?gamepage-appid-573130
And the achievement about blue vial has the same name in it, "The Vial of Oth Makail".
This means Death Warden is Oth Makail and owner/creator of blue vial. We know he's kinda scientist as he created vials, discovered those plants and their healing powers. Later he created this blue vial, probably by using those special blue rocks.

Blue vial then was taken by Hunter when his vial broke during fight. But then, how did it end up behind closed mosaic door? Hunter placed it there before hibernation?

Still I can't quite agree with aforementioned versions of what Hunter demanded from Death Warden before death of the latter. I doubt he asked him to take medicine to prolong life as he didn't have medicine bowl nor herb with him. He took out his vial and was kinda forcing Death Warden to do something with it.

My best guess is that he demanded scientific research to help deal with poisonous gas and everything.

As for the question why Death Warden presented herb as medicine but later rejected it. DW intended herb to be used only for treating sick people, but it ended up making people immortal which ruined natural order of things and his job. And that's why DW rejected taking it and grew old. But when the big trouble began with people dying and ejecting poisonous gas, other Wardens saw his rejection as if DW knew about its ill effect all along. So they imprisoned him.

[sharondornhoff]

Still I can't quite agree with aforementioned versions of what Hunter demanded from Death Warden before death of the latter. I doubt he asked him to take medicine to prolong life as he didn't have medicine bowl nor herb with him. He took out his vial and was kinda forcing Death Warden to do something with it.

He did have the plant with him, though. In the next-to-last clip in the final animation (the one showing the murder), there's a piece of the plant on the table. The hunter tries to force it into the death warden's hands, but the death warden pushes it away.

[gr8artist]

Maybe I misunderstood something, but I got the impression that the Warden of Death was refining amber by using the bodies that were sent down the river to him.
People died, got put in boats, floated down to his lab, and he did experiments on/with them.
Which would imply that the amber liquid is made (at least partially) from corpses.
When the civilization flourished, they dumped the excess amber into the furnaces, where it decomposed into necrotic gas.

I guess I can backtrack to try and find the cutscenes that made me think that, but I'm not sure I want to do that any time soon.

[JFM]

Hey, i can't say i like the game (actually i don't like the genre), but i wanted to try it and i really like story. I don't want to play the game anymore, but i want to know story. Second reply said you missed something, and i didn't want to read other comments since they have tons of spoiler. Long story short, i want to read whole story, which comment is best to understand it? I hope you can help :)

[KingAnimal]

sharondornhoff eredeti hozzászólása:

I would add to Psyringe's summary that there was a lot of personal subtext to the relationships between the life, death and hunt wardens. The life warden and death warden were twins, and the former was romantically involved with the hunter. Her brother, despite his important role in society, was excluded from the Council that governed the valley. He didn't like being left out of major decisions, but the morbid nature of his work (ritually sending bodies along the river, then storing them in stone caskets) made him too unpopular.

When he first discovered the yellow liquid, the death warden couldn't present it to the Council on his own, so he elicited the help of his sister's boyfriend. With both the hunt and life wardens in favor of using the cylinders, the other Council members were convinced of its usefulness. The death warden was pleased that his discovery could be put to use, but also a bit jealous that the hunt warden was claiming the limelight that should have been his.

The death warden continued his research, perhaps still hoping to earn a place on the Council. He discovered that a plant - possibly one already known to have medicinal properties - could be supercharged by the yellow liquid, making it capable of healing any injury and even keeping its consumer young. He revealed this to his sister, the valley's chief doctor, who tested it on an elderly patient. The enhanced plant made the sick man both healthy and young.

She and her boyfriend presented this discovery, too, to the Council. Once again, the hunt warden hogged some of the glory that rightly belonged to the death warden. Convinced that the plant's medicinal value was great - and probably tempted by the notion of eternal life - the other Council members agreed that the plant should be cultivated. The soil, transport and construction wardens worked together to create fields of the plant, mine and smelt the yellow mineral, and deliver regular shipments of all these resources to the population. Many citizens also grew the plant in their homes, to have it readily available in case of injury.

Down sides to these changes began to emerge. With fewer people dying of illness, age or wounds, the population soared, necessitating more construction of homes and ritual sites. The death warden had to let his assistants go find other work, as only the most drastic of injuries resulted in death anymore. The smelting of the yellow rocks produced a nasty toxic gas, that polluted the area. More of the plant had to be consumed to ameliorate the gas's effects. The miners and smelting-crews took more risks, walking across hot ground or clambering around on rickety wooden scaffolding, confident they would be healed if injured.

The death warden, displeased with how society was changing and resentful of the Council not giving him the credit he'd surely earned, sourly refused to consume the plant to stave off old age. He'd come to see it as "unnatural" ... especially when he saw a little kid using it to remain a child forever, and when he saw what happened to the bodies of the rare few plant-users who *did* die by mischance. His disgust for his own discovery peaked when the life warden, in treating a child who'd been taking the plant for decades, witnessed the effects of an overdose: the patient's true age caught up with him, his flesh evaporated into more of the toxic gas, until only his skeleton remained. Horrified, the life warden rushed the body to her brother, then told the Council of her little patient's terrible fate.

Set in their ways after decades of prolonging their own lives, the Council didn't want to hear it. The hunt warden, especially, had enjoyed being young and fit - essential traits for a hunter - and didn't want his lover, the life warden, to become old either. He, himself, had lost a family member to drowning once, and didn't want death to claim another life in the valley ever again. Accusations flew, and the death warden *finally* got his wish of being a part of a Council meeting ... but only to face the bogus charge that he'd deliberately contaminated the plants in an attempt to make everyone give up their immortality, thus restoring his office as the valley's mortuary-overseer to prominence. The life warden, shocked that her associates would turn on her brother, was unable to prevent them from sentencing the death warden to prison.

Overdoses continued to strike people down, starting with the sickly, and with the miners and others who had used the plant heavily in their dangerous work. Without the death warden to seal away the bodies, and with fewer workers tending the polluting smelters, the toxic gas levels built up to deadly concentrations. Some of the people wanted to evacuate the valley, but the Council - the hunt warden in particular - would not allow it. Villagers fled to the trees, above the level of the gas, while the Council isolated itself in the ritual buildings that rimmed the low valley. Greenhouses were built to shield the soil warden's crops from the gas, and gas-proof tunnels constructed to transport resources underneath the contaminated areas.

Such precautions couldn't stave off catastrophe forever. The Council struggled to find an answer. Meanwhile, the imprisoned death warden continued refusing to consume the plant and prolong his own life. Fearing that the aging prisoner would die, the hunt warden - perhaps hoping the captive might come up with a cure, perhaps fearing his lover would never forgive him if her twin died in chains - tried to force the death warden to eat the plant, thus staying alive and proving he'd come around to the Council's way of thinking. When the death warden still refused, a fight broke out, and the hunt warden murdered his lover's twin. He switched vials and covered up his crime.

The life warden soon came to visit her brother in his prison cell, and found him dead. Knowing a little of her brother's ritual practices, she encircled his body with stones, intending to lie down beside him in a customary funeral rite for twins. But before she could finish her duty to her kin, the death warden's murdered spirit arose as the Black Spectre, seeping the toxic gas he'd unwittingly fostered with his discoveries, and able to inflict the wounds his enhanced plants had healed. Terrified, the life warden fled, never realizing her brother had been murdered rather than died of old age.

Although the trees had provided refuge from the passively-drifting toxic pollution, the Black Spectre was another matter: enraged at everyone who'd used the plant or heeded the corrupt Council, it attacked people every night and haunted the forest shadows even by day. The time warden's blue pillars - a mystical technology that pre-dated the yellow liquid, and which had been of some value against the toxic gas - could keep the Spectre at bay, but not vanquish it. The hunt warden, determined to protect his people - and cover up his crime - shot arrows at the Spectre from the pillars' shelter, buying time for others to flee from its attacks. While this only inconvenienced the creature, it was hailed as a heroic deed, and helped solidify the hunt warden's status as the valley's leader.

Before the plant made it unnecessary, the life warden had been using a variant of the yellow liquid to put sick patients into suspended animation, to await a cure. Now, with the Black Spectre and the gas jointly making the Valley uninhabitable, the Council hit upon this as the only alternative to evacuating the region. Great numbers of preservation-vats were constructed, enough to hold the elite and respected of society. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough of the variant liquid to preserve everyone: a fact the Council kept from the ordinary villagers until the day of mass hibernation dawned. Had they admitted the truth, as the compassionalte life warden had recommended, the poor citizens could at least have fled the valley; however, she was out-voted, as the other wardens feared the workers would desert at once if told, rather than keep fashioning vats and mining yellow rocks until the last minute.

When the time came, the common folk initially thought little of it when the well-off and the privileged began gathering at the high temple. But when the elite sealed the tunnels behind them, leaving them no way to retreat from the choking gas, the poor workers of the valley were doomed. Some died in their homes, others at their workplaces. Some died embracing their children, or vainly trying to shield them from gas or Spectre attacks with their own bodies. A mob of them managed to dodge the gas and reach the hibernation-chamber, only to find the great doors sealed and impenetrable to their picks and hammers. As villagers died, their bodies - long permeated by the plant - were instantly reduced to skeletons, and the fabric of their clothing would soon rot, leaving only a few bits of leather buckled to an occasional body.

As for the Council, some of them followed the hunt warden into the main hibernation chamber, where he claimed the highest of biers for himself. The life warden - traumatized by her brother's death and resurrection, and appalled by the decision to write off the common folk - refused to remain by his side. Rather, she volunteered to join the time and transport wardens in a subsidiary chamber on the far side of the river, to await their automatic revival. Keys to unlock the main hibernation chamber were also left in secure locations around the valley, and would be used to unlock the main chamber once the toxic gas had time to dissipate. In the rush to arrange everything, one of these pieces was lost: left lying beside the body of one of the life warden's assistants, who'd perished on the way to its intended location.

Originally, the plan was for all three to awaken at once, so the life warden could revive the populace and the transport warden could open the tunnels to get her to the main vault. The time warden accompanied them, to set the mechanism that would revive them. But what no one had counted on was that a rockfall from the subsidiary chamber would crush the transport warden's vat, killing him in his sleep, and damage the timing mechanism. The time warden awoke alone, and was unable to revive the life warden.

Although he eventually did reach the hibernation vault, the time warden's own solo adventure in the valley didn't go as well as the life warden's would. The gas was still thick enough that he wasn't able to open the tunnels, and his attempt to retrieve a powerful item he'd been working on - the blue cylinder - only resulted in the breakage of its chamber's stained glass door. The Black Spectre later scattered the pieces of glass all over the valley, using the power to teleport things which both it and the other ghosts which now haunted the region had developed. As for the time warden, he was fatally poisoned by the gas, and the ghosts - sensing that he had one of the pieces that could unlock the vault and free their people, who didn't deserve to suffer for the Council's bad decisions - transported him to the hibernation chamber. He lived just long enough to place his own key piece, then died and disintegrated into bones and vapor.

When the life warden's timer finally did go off, she'd been in hibernation much, much longer than originally intended, and her vat had been slightly damaged by the rockfall. She was alive, but her memory had been disrupted, leaving her with amnesia. It would take careful study of the artifacts and memory-recordings around her for her to discover what she needed to do, and a psychic nudge from the Black Spectre - a creature which, although initually mystified and irate about her presence, eventually realized that it had known and loved her in life - to fully restore her identity and reveal the truth of how her twin had died.

Read your entire explanation and i must say i agree with a lot you wrote ! Such an amazing and enthralling story to this game, a gem !

[Pinaz993]

Took y'all long enough to start calling them wardens. sharondornhoff's explanation is the absolute most plausible of all that I've seen. As an amature writer and non-verbal communication enthusiast, I'm quite enamored with all the subtle nuances that went into this game, and your explanation ties everything together in a very nice neat package.

[Leynael]

Nobody mentioned this : Death Warden initially uses the naturally grown plant only as some sort of Tea, made with the plant and boiling water.
Later the plant is forced to rapidly grow with the energy of the amber light. My idea is, that this changed the properties of the plant somehow from only healing people to prolonging their lives and building up poisons in their bodies.
It might explain why Death Warden refused to use the healing powers of the plant for himself...because it was something unnatural.

[Philiop]

Innocentive eredeti hozzászólása:

Psyringe eredeti hozzászólása:

14. The player retrieves the six parts of the key, and discovers how the priest was killed, which puts the priest's soul to rest. The player opens the lock and gets to make a final decision: They can leave everything as-is and leave, rowing their boat into the sunset (which is possibly a death ritual), or they can reawaken the people. In case of the latter, the culture will flourish again, as the ghost has been put to rest, the poison gas has dispersed, and the people will know not to drink the plant juice again.

I would like to add that I do not agree with the second choice you depict as a 'good' one. In particular I would argue that the culture would not flourish again if you chose to resurrect it. The first sign of that is given in the light murals that indicate what you would choose. The resurrected society would follow the Fish man, and apparently only the Fish man. Now, the above should make clear that the notions of the Fish man, while an integral part of mankind, need balance through other forces of life and death to not lead society down the same path again.

There is another hint in the end sequence after choosing to resurrect the lost culture: The persons emerging from the tubs and rebuilding society all appear black. While it appears that this is just due to the lighting of the scenes, it seemed to me that in the scene with the smelter people are just black, as if they were shadows of themselves without any life force. Furthermore, it should be noted that these people are working on the lava field without any protection from the apparently hot floor or black smoke. They do not take any damage as the player did when entering these areas. So I think it is safe to say that these beings are not what they used to be. To me they do not appear alive, they are merely undead. Under these circumstances I would not call that culture flourishing.

Just got around to finishing the game, and I note that you said you saw the people working at the smelter etc...I didnt have this because I closed all those smelters during the game and got the achievement for it. Instead I see lush green surrounding the furnace and people just rebuilding a civiliaztion

[Innocentive]

I did notice that in a later playthrough, however, believe me when I say that, with respect to where people work, the ending sequence is the same with not all smelters closed. And they do work on an active lava field as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

So, effectively, the ending sequence changes according to your choices as a player which has no impact on what has happened before to the people "in storage". I stand by my evaluation that something is not right with this reawakened people and I belive it has to do with the fact that that people was, and potentially still is, seriously impacted by the effects of the plants.

[Alkeras]

Just finished Aporia, what a great little game! Kudos to Sharondornhoff above for the story synopsis because I believe you're 100% correct, I came to the same conclusions, and you picked up on some things I missed.

Probably the only mystery to me now is how the Death warden (Oth)'s blue vial ended up behind the stained glass door given the Hunt warden took it after unintentionally killing him, so I'm going to add my own speculation here:

The warden of Life (the player) was romantically involved with the Hunt warden as shown on the stained glass door (etc), and she also found out that he killed her brother as she finds the body & broken vial. As he was imprisoned and unpopular I doubt many people had access to that chamber (possibly just Hunt/Life) which narrows down the suspects, especially if he had physical injuries.

This is heavier speculation but it's also possible that all the wardens had differently coloured vials (eg. we find a broken green one) and if so it would've been obvious that the Hunt's original vial was suddenly broken next to her dead brother, and he was now walking around with Oth's blue vial.

I can't imagine they would've been together after this either way. I suspect the Hunt warden locked the bad memory/regret of the vial away behind a stained glass door depicting his relationship with the Life warden before it fell apart, and then went into hibernation. As the leader I'm sure it would've been trivial for him to get another vial.

Oh and to address MASTAN's comment about the stone slab in the secret cave: It's just an easter egg, it's the developer's logo carved into stone.

[§єǫuєᴋʜaɴ ⚶]

I just finished it and the way I saw it the underlying theme revolved around a balance of light and dark, life and death.

I don't think the mining directly correlates to black mist - it's not the same thing. We see different colours for that - almost like lava cracks in the earth as opposed to the thick mist at the end of chapter 4. From the tapestries, I was under the impression the black mist only came about after a prolonged use of the miracle cure.

Also too, it seems there was no apparent 'leader' as such to begin with - each council member seemed to have their own role, as evinced by their large medallions.

As for the black spirit - there was only the one, that of the Death councilor, but as for the exact reason why only he returned as a spirit, I cannot say. It doesn't gel well with my idea of the light-dark or balance metaphor.

And as the tapestries are out of order, there's no way of knowing if the old guy or the kid died first.