So i dumped 3k echoes in matriarchs in vain ? What im gonna do with my 6 cats now ??
Wait, did you go and buy all your Matriarchs at once? Man. You were gonna be in for a nasty surprise.
I’m in the middle of the long, tedious part of SMEN, where you need to collect weeping scars, memory of chains, and stains upon your souls. I know many people are asking about monetary loss, and while my question isn’t nearly as severe, I was wondering if the time and Echoes spent on acquiring these will still be relevant in the future (I’d rather not the ~9 deaths I went through to get to where I am now in it go to waste- I value my death highly).
I would say yes, but nobody knows right now.
That wasn’t the greatest idea; betraying your Matriarch sets your number owned to 0.
You’re not the only one in this situation, though. A lot of people were in the middle of something. Just going to have to wait it out, I guess.
I kindasorta took advantage of a minor bug and gathered some text that I had wanted but then got to SMEN 6 too early to collect (sabotaging Peppercorn at Mahogany Hall), though, so there’s that - hasn’t been a total loss, at least not for me. And the menaces were terribly refreshing. I’d report it, but I’m under the impression it’s already been reported.
[li]
edited by Laluzi on 12/11/2013
I’m fairly sure Ms Laluzi means that betraying the Matriarch sets the number owned to zero. And honestly that’s not even the worst it’s been—back when I was in the business of betraying kitties for a laugh, betraying the Matriarch actually set the quality to negative one. So if you wanted to do it again, you needed to buy two just to do so.
May have been a bug, but it was a pretty long-lived bug at any rate, and horrifyingly expensive. Consider yourself… well, not fortunate. Consider yourself not particularly worse-off. Or particularly delicious, if you like.
And yes, I highly recommend that if you intend to keep up with the Eaten storyline, and if the storyline comes back in any way resembling its former state, I advise selling all of your surplus matriarchs forthwith.[li]
edited by Dawson on 12/11/2013
Er, yes, that was what I meant; thank you, Dawson. Sometimes it is difficult to keep a clear mind with all the secrets I know. The whispers, the waters. The drowning. Sometimes one forgets.
I dunno. Maybe he intended to betray 7 matriarchs each time. That sounds like the sort of thing I would do, if I ever had that many echos haha. #reasons I don’t have an overgoat
Actually, are you certain it sets them to 0? If them being set to -1 was a bug, it stands to reason that it was supposed to subtract -1 matriarch, instead. Had anyone actually tested it since it was changed?
It’s sort of a moot point now, I imagine.
I’m kinda sad. I’m SUPPOSED to be Free of the Name, but the Advent calendar took it away from me and then someone betrayed me. (I felt bad about refusing, because… well. I remember how hard it was) And now I’m stuck at level 1 of the Name.
Also, the text read by the Special Constable when he visited at Hallowmass.[/quote]
Now the bit about being sold for freedom from chains forged in a horizon-place and from the treachery of daughters is new. Is it worth speculating over what it could mean? (Isn’t it always? If my theory about the Second City is correct, Akhetaten literally means ‘the horizon of Aten,’ and there are multiple references throughout the game to the Pharoah’s daughters – on Corpsecage Island, at Polythreme, in Mr Sacks’s sack in 2010, inside the well. Outside the game, when Mr Eaten still spoke to players in DMs, he said the Pharoah’s daughters were ‘most hospitable.’ Was he involved in their treachery or a victim of it? Who is the ‘I’ in the aforementioned text – Mr Eaten? The Second City itself? That would explain what ‘you sold me’ means. When will we find out.)
(Suffice to say I love the Mr Eaten storyline because it makes me think. I’m sure it still will when it comes back again, and who knows! Perhaps I’ll stick with it this time.)
Well, if I’m allowed to speculate… (and this is most rampant speculation, far-flung from fact)
Also; here there be spoilers. Massive spoilers. You have been warned.
[spoiler] We know Mr Eaten was betrayed in the Third City, but some things hint that Mr Eaten had a connection to the Second City as well. The Masters hate the Second City, for reasons unknown; Mr Eaten is singular in the fact that he does not. Specifically, he said;
‘I think the place is charming; the weather, delightful; the Pharaoh’s daughters, most hospitable.’
So Mr Eaten enjoyed the Second City while the rest of the Masters loathed it. It’s curious that he’d mention the Pharaoh’s daughters in particular. Combine this with the fact that the Duchess - who was most certainly one of the Pharaoh’s daughters - approves of you speaking of Mr Eaten in her parlor, when she approves of little else, and it’s possible that Mr Eaten was a close friend of the royal family. This is also supported by a bit of text from the now-destroyed Winking Isle (the Duchess that the Masters loathe; he does not loathe her…).
In exchanging certifiable scraps for highest-tier items, there are often scraps of the stories behind said items. In particular, the Breath of the Void references an incantation in the Correspondence made to the Bazaar, by the Pharaoh of the Second City. I unfortunately can’t cite the following, because I can’t find it (I will if I do), but I have been told that the Pharaoh spoke an incantation to the Bazaar in an attempt to ‘chain’ it.
That’s also supported by scraps of doggerel. The second was the one that betrayed, the third taught us hunger… so it may have been that the Pharaoh attempted to betray the Bazaar using the Correspondence. Where did he learn it? There are other ways, if not many, but knowing a Master might be a bit of a shortcut. Perhaps Mr Eaten taught it to one of his daughters, perhaps he didn’t. It doesn’t particularly matter if he did or didn’t, or if he was in on the deal or not. He’s already guilty by association. If the other Masters thought that Mr Eaten had anything to do with the royal family’s plot… well, that would explain why they turned on him in the next city. Mr Eaten’s viewpoint suggests he was innocent, but, well. You could say he’s biased.
On the other hand, it’s heavily implied that Mr Veils singularly betrayed Mr Eaten. He’s ticked with Wines and Spices for stealing the domain he vacated, and he’s mad at the Bazaar for not holding its promise, but he absolutely loathes Mr Veils. The Bazaar and the rest of the Masters went along with it, and none have displayed any sort of uncertainty about what happened, but there are numerous times during the quest where Mr Eaten calls out Mr Veils specifically for selling him out to the God-Eaters, the third-city priests. There was some sort of ceremony – Mr Eaten was told that they ‘would only take a little’ – and it looks like it was done to appease… something? There’s also something that suggests it was done to break the chains the pharaoh placed on the Bazaar. Mr Eaten might have been selected for it over some slight, such as the aforementioned possible second city fiasco, but it’s ambiguous whether or not the rest of the Masters knew what was going to happen, or if the priests really were only supposed to take a little and something went wrong/the process was sabotaged. In the end, well. We know that much. Mr Eaten was consumed, drowned, and destroyed. The God-Eaters live forever. His kin have forgotten him. He has not been avenged. The Bazaar promised him all would be well. All is most certainly not well. And a reckoning will not be postponed indefinitely.
Again; this is all theory and conjecture, pieced together from fragments of fact. I do not have the complete picture. There are doubtless many things wrong with my guesses.[/spoiler]
edited by Laluzi on 12/12/2013
Well, we’re two then :) Except I did it on purpose, i carry that SMEN 1 since the betrayal mechanic was introduced.
I managed to betray a cat before the content was removed, apparently it just reduced my number by 1 only (have 5 now)
Really? Worth knowing. Thank you!
Seems worthless though , the prospect of having endured the Quest for nothing seems just daunting
The quest might come back. Alexis is taking a week or so to think it over and decide what to do.
I was at SMEN 7 (or was it 8? Whichever one it is that starts giving you the “Soul/Mind/Body and the number” cards) …and then JUST before all the drama, like a day before, I opted out of the quest via the “number of candles” card…and INSTANTLY regretted it (I may have had a beer or two and was feeling impulsive, whoops!) and now that things are on hold I’m even sadder that I don’t have the “seeking the Name” quality anymore to keep as a reminder. I had already resolved to play the whole thing through again from the start since that Advent code kindly removed my “free of the Name” quality (THAT was a lucky piece of timing, because I really did regret giving it up)
[quote=Laluzi]Well, if I’m allowed to speculate… (and this is most rampant speculation, far-flung from fact)
Also; here there be spoilers. Massive spoilers. You have been warned.
…[/quote]
Excellent speculation, rampant or no!
[spoiler]I’d never made the connection between speaking of Mr Eaten and gaining the Duchess’s favor! But it makes sense that they’d share some history. They are both none too keen on the Bazaar, and the Bazaar is none too keen on either of them. And I’m intrigued by the Breath of the Void text – my theory about the Pharaoh being Akhenaten is just that, a theory, but he did establish his city as the seat of the sun-god Aten. And considering that there have been attempts to communicate with the Sun using the Correspondence, and Neathy Mysteries for the Advanced Student abounds with theories about a tragic love affair between the Bazaar and the Sun … Hm. I’m slipping into crackpot territory here. But let’s just say speaking to the Sun would be in Akhenaten’s interest, and there’s lots of room therein for him to betray the Bazaar and the Masters.
To bring in further Neathlore, I suspect What the Thunder Said has … something to do with all of this. In later dreams, you learn the Correspondence from the Thunder, which could be another way for the Pharaoh or his daughters to learn it, if not from Mr Eaten. And there’s a sacrifice reminiscent of the sacrifice you’ll find practiced on Mutton Island if you poke around a bit, and the whole place seems to be home to a sort of Mr Eaten cult. What, oh what, does it mean.
Also I was about to ask whether these God-Eaters have anything to do with the vision I saw through the black lens, looked it up, and realized oh. Cat, Serpent, Bird. The God-Eaters consumed Mr Eaten and now they rule a tomb-colony across the Unterzee. Or at least that’s what I’m going with.
ETA: If you ask the Northbond Parliamentarian about the tomb-colony, she says They fear those who seek the name. Perhaps we can undo everything they’ve built. So there’s that.[/spoiler]
[li]
edited by theodor_gylden on 12/12/2013