Pagan: The Beginning of Wisdom

The Avatar is a bit slow.

        

Plot check: The Avatar has been stranded on the world of Pagan by the Guardian, who continues to taunt him with hints about the devastation he is inflicting on Britannia while the Avatar tries to find a way back. (How are we supposed to regard these jeers? Are they audible to others? Just in the Avatar's head?) The Avatar has learned from a thaumaturgist named Mythran that to escape Pagan, he will need to master the native forms of magic, each aspected to an element, each dominated by an elemental titan.

   

The Avatar has learned necromancy (earth magic) and has risen to the rank of second-in-command of the necromancers, of whom there seem to be two. He has not learned tempestry (water magic), but he has freed the elemental titan of water, Hydros, from her ancient prison, and she has vowed exact revenge on the city of Tenebrae and the descendants of the tempest who imprisoned her. He has made tentative contact with the sorcerers (fire magic) and has learned that he'll need to learn a flying spell to cross the river of lava and to reach the sorcerers. Finally, he has passed the initial tests to become a theurgist. Theurgy is aspected to air, the domain of Stratos, whose followers study the healing arts. Stratos seems unique among the titans in not being a complete knob, but then again, I haven't met her yet.

     

A test of "all I have learned" turns out to be one spell.

           

We resume with the Avatar, having constructed his theurgistic focuses, returning to the leader of the theurgists, Stellos. Stellos tells me that now that I have all the theurgistic spells, I will need to return to the caverns under the monastery, where I had found the silver ore used to make the focuses. "You will know what to do when you arrive there," he assures.

   

Shortly after I arrive in the caverns, I find a wounded torax, heavily breathing on the ground. Feeling mischievous, I try to kill it. The game doesn't even acknowledge the swings of my sword. I sigh, open up my focus/potion bag, and select "Healing Touch." The torax stops his heavy breathing and, after a moment, disappears.

     

Did some sick bastard wound a torax just so I could come down here and heal it?

    

The torax was on a little island that I had to jump down to. Now, I die three times trying to jump back to the main part of the dungeon. I end up using the Recall Item to go to the Argentrock Isle teleporter pad, then walk back to Stellos. I imagine that there are probably more tests in the dungeon, but since I have to pass him anyway, it doesn't hurt to check. To my surprise, I have a dialogue option that "I have passed the third test."

   

Stellos congratulates me but says my further education will have to wait, as "a terrible thing has happened": someone has stolen Brother Xavier's focus of healing. Stellos is careful to clarify that if this thief is found, Stellos will not hold a grudge but will "help him find the path of Enlightenment again." 

     

What a bunch of hippies.

     

Stellos makes it clear that he doesn't have any leads, so I don't know what's going to be occupying the time that he would have spent guiding me to my next test. Certainly, he's not going to be looking for it. Nonetheless, this is clearly my problem to solve. I start poking around. Cyrrus just repeats what Stellos told me, adding that the item was stolen while Xavier slept. Torwin, who doesn't remember my name from our previous encounter, has nothing new to offer.

    

I find Xavier in his house. He says the focus was stolen from a chest next to his bed. Given that he's a light sleeper, whoever stole it would have had to be very stealthy. He tells me that Torwin is a very "strange" student, given to lurking around people's houses at night. He has been asking about the "Resurrection" spell, apparently only given by Stratos to one adept at a time. Casting this spell is how Stellos lost his eyesight. Anyway, Torwin has also repeatedly failed the third test despite his advancing rapidly through the first two.

   

During our conversation, Xavier mentions that Stratos has provided the means of learning the truth, which reminds me of the "Hear Truth" spell. Its focus looks like a chain. I cast it and run around speaking to everyone again. I don't think the spell is perfect, as Torwin still insists that he made his focus correctly (the third test) on his first try. However, Cyrrus has some new information: he thinks Torwin stole the focus; he's covering for Torwin; Torwin went to Windy Point on some kind of errand.

      

This is a cute way to represent the effects of the spell—what he says in regular text, the truth in parentheticals—except it doesn't seem to work on any other NPC.

      

I find Torwin on the plateau near the two stone pillars that look out over the sea. After some prodding (in which "Hear Truth" seems to do nothing), he admits to "borrowing" the focus. He tells me he's the son of Toran, the man executed by Mordea at the beginning of the game. Torwin thought that by combining two focuses, he can make the standard "Healing Touch" spell more powerful, perhaps even affecting the equivalent of a "Resurrection" spell without needing to know that spell. Torwin did not realize that Toran was cast into the sea for Hydros, and he loses it when I tell him. He insists that he will bring his father back, that he doesn't even need the extra focus, which he tosses at my feet. "I am strong enough to do it on my own! And I will! I'm coming for you, father!!" He then runs and jumps off the promontory into the sea and drowns.

     

I have never been so confused about someone's plan.

         

(This was all hinted when I spoke to Rhian, Toran's wife, several entries ago: "Their son, Torwin, has gone off to be a Theurgist, something that confuses Rhian because he never expressed any interest in becoming a healer when he was growing up." I had forgotten about that. It's not a bad motivation. When I met Torwin last session, I was convinced he was going to get jealous that I was advancing faster than him. I'm glad his story was more complicated than that.)

    

In addition to the focus, he threw his ring on the ground. I pick up both objects and return to Xavier. He gratefully receives the focus but doesn't ask me where I found it. When I speak to Stellos, my dialogue option to introduce the subject is, amusingly, "Poor Torwin." Stellos already seems to know what happened to the kid, which is a bit mystifying. Anyway, he says that I'm ready for the final test, which is to go jump off the very promontory at which Torwin committed suicide. 

   

Well, I have the power of Reload and Torwin didn't. I go, stand between the pillars, and jump. Of course, this time, there's a floating rock waiting for me on the other side. I jump from rock to rock, eventually nearing a platform with a swirling gale upon it: Stratos. As I get close, Stratos sends a whirlwind to knock me down, then lift me up and float me over to her. "And yet another child is found. Please, small one, come closer." 

      

It's not like you gave me any choice.

       

The Avatar's only response is a supremely stupid "Who are you?" She, of course, introduces herself as Stratos, the titan of air. She says that she invests her "chosen children" with the power of healing through the "Breath of Wind," the location of which is known only to Stellos. I have the option to say, "May I have the Breath of Wind?" and then to insist "I must have the Breath of Wind" when she says no. She still declines: "Without the Breath of Wind, many would die. Many would pay the price for your quest for power. No, child, I cannot allow this." I mean, good for her. I don't know why the Avatar is demanding this power in the first place. At first, I think it's the power that will allow him to fly across the lava to the sorcerers, but no, she gives me a focus that will let me cast "Air Walk" and presumably accomplish that task. So I'm not sure what the Avatar was going on about.

 

Stratos, incidentally, came across as a touch arrogant but still not evil like Lithos or Hydros. 

   

"Air Walk" doesn't seem to work to levitate me back to the promontory. Just like "Hear Truth," I gather that it's far more limited than its description would suggest, useful only at specific locations to solve scripted plot points. I verify this by returning to Tenebrae and re-talking to everyone with "Hear Truth" active. No one has any parenthetical dialogue. There are, however, some new bits of dialogue related to events since the last time I spoke with them:

   

• A couple of the guards invite me to join them for a drink at the tavern.

• Jenna, the server in the tavern, remarks that "some fool" released Hydros but won't believe me when I tell her it was me. That's cute, but I was hoping she'd have some dialogue about Cyrrus. 

      

What "type," exactly, releases a titan?

         

• Shaana, the executioner, doesn't seem to know that Mordea is dead even though she was there.

• Darion, the captain who trains people in east Tenebrae, has something to say about most of the NPCs I met. His wife died shortly after she gave birth to Jenna. Jenna has refused marriage offers from just about every eligible man in Tenebrae, but Darion thinks I might have what it takes. When I speak to him again, I have the option to say, "Yes, I want to marry your daughter!" When I do, he sheepishly tells me that Jenna has sworn to kill any man that is chosen for her to marry. The game forces me to back out of the conversation with no resolution. It would have been pretty mean to Cyrrus anyway. I spend 50 gold to train with Darion, though to no purpose since my statistics are already at their maximums. 

     

What do I have to lose? It's not like I'm going to be staying.

       

• Cyrrus mentioned a bunch of people: Jenna, Darion, his parents. There are no dialogue options with any of them to report on how Cyrrus is doing.

• Several people remark on the "terrible weather." There are puddles on the streets everywhere from all the rain.

• The conversation I dread most is with Rhian, and of course the Avatar starts it clumsily with: "I found this ring." Upon further prodding, I have the option to tell Rhian that Torwin had an accident, committed suicide, or just "passed away." I choose the neutral option, and all she says is, "Perhaps we shall speak later." When I speak to her again, she gratefully takes the ring and sobs.

      

The Avatar just piles it on.

       

• Kilandra didn't know Devon had been made tempest. She also doesn't believe that I released Hydros. 

        

The fish always know.

      

I had assumed this "Bane" person would be the one to teach me the flying spell. Again, we see the hand of fate. When I walked away from the river of lava, resolutely continuing to follow the right wall, then encountering the theurgists, I thought I was doing My Own Thing. It turns out that's exactly what I had to do.

   

When I'm ready to resume my explorations, instead of going back to the lava lake, I continue my rightmost wall pattern from where the caverns exited at Argentrock Isle. (Oh, I just got it: "Argentrock" = "silver ore.") "Divination" calls this set of caverns the Upper Catacombs, which I thought applied to a different map. This turns out to be correct. After I wrap around the cave for a while, finding nothing but mushrooms and bones, I find myself back in the other Upper Catacombs, this one looking less like a cave and more like a . . . well, catacombs. 

   

I'm kind of back to the beginning at this point, but I spend some time peeking in on places I've already visited to find their proper names and ensure that I have an accurate map. Sometimes, the spell says I'm "totally lost" instead of giving me the area's name, so I have to go with my own names.

       

This is the Cemetery. I've been here many times.

        

Some findings:

      

• I never find an obvious place to use the Skull of Quakes. 

• I can't seem to get back to the Lower Catacombs (or whatever they were called) to find the ancient necromancers; the room where I fell down the hole in the floor seems to be gone entirely.

• Commenter Joshua suggested that I visit the cave in the Valley after I was done with the theurgists. I'm not sure why, as the reason I couldn't make any progress here last time was because of locked doors. None of my theurgist spells do anything about locked doors. I can't find any other way to move forward here, so I'll take another hint if anyone has one to offer.

• There's a cave on the north wall of the Plateau that I completely missed the first time. It has more fireballs shooting out of the walls than the other caves, where it's already overdone. A trapped chest in here contains a mace called "Bonecrusher." This weapon is mentioned in The Saga of Bone Crusher. It kills skeletons permanently without having to cast "Grant Peace." Otherwise, I don't know whether it's better than Protector, but I'll hold onto it.

• There's a large double-door in this cave, with a ton of dead bodies strewn in front of it. I search every single goddamned one of them and don't find a key. Mythran's spell doesn't work. And the whole time, I'm attacked by invisible enemies that don't show themselves when I cast "Reveal." Again, light hints welcome. 

     

Apparently, a lot of people died trying to get through this door.

       

• The area west of West Tenebrae turns out to be called Fishermans Reef, no apostrophe, according to the spell.

• Someone said I could open the locked door in the Pit of Death by casting "Create Golem" on a patch of earth. I mix the spell, but I cannot find any patch of earth in the area on which to cast it. 

      

Lots of mushrooms, but no earth.

          

• Shamhat alerted me to a lever in my screenshot of a chest completely surrounded by a fence in the caverns north of Carthax Lake (where I freed Hydros). I return there, lower the fence with the lever, and find that the chest is full of useless death disks and poison potions.

          

My map of the game so far. I can't really make the underground geography work.

        

Eventually, I'm back at the Lava River, where I walk to the edge of the lava, cast "Air Walk," move west, and immediately fall into the lava and die. I fiddle around a bit. It turns out "Air Walk" works with jumping; it really just makes you jump extra far. Not quite the "Fly" spell I was promised. I cross the lava, then a river, and finally emerge in the outdoors at a place that "Divination" tells me is called Daemon's Crag. I assume I'll meet the sorcerers here.

 

I guess this is where water from Hydros's prison is now flowing into the Lava River.

         

I don't feel like I accomplished much this session, but I cleared up some loose ends and was able to properly label my map.

   

Timestamp: 42 hours

    

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10/28/2026