Announcements - 2013/04 - Engineered Ascendance
April 2013 - Patch Page
Original Link - https://www.asheronscall.com/en/content/2013-events
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1 - Ally To Dereth.
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2 - Joining Forces.
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3 - An Unpleasant Meeting.
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4 - New Shadow Armor.
Release Notes
Original Link - https://www.asheronscall.com/en/content/april-2013-release-notes
April 2013: Release Notes
- Monthly Kill Task updated
- Quests of the Month
- Weekly: Black Spear Ice Totem
- Bi-Weekly: Tanada House of Storms
- Monthly: Temple of Kivik Lir
- CONTRACTS:
- Uziz Abductions
- Golem Hunters: Copper Golem Kingpin
- Golem Hunters: Coral Golem Viceroy
- Golem Hunters: Glacial Golem Margrave
- Golem Hunters: Magma Golem Exarch
- Golem Hunters: Mud Golem Sludge Lord
- Golem Hunters: Platinum Golem Mountain King
- Master of Steel Circle now includes Dual Wield skill
- Ninja Academy treasure room door now stays open for a longer duration
- Fixed luminance award of Shadow Flyers
- Fixed Shadow Engineers to spawn correctly
- Sclavus monsters have been rebalanced
- Newly updated Shadow Armor
- Fixed creature maces & clubs, such that they now do bludgeon damage instead of piercing.
- Lowered the damage of Obsidian Spines shot from Obsidian Chitticks
Original Link - https://www.asheronscall.com/en/content/april-2013-engineered-ascendance
April 2013 - Engineered Ascendance
The Vision of Horror approached the Reaver of Dreams, who turned at the mere presence of the unenlightened one. “The Curator of Torment has not been seen for nearly seven rotations. It is as if the connection is broken. I cannot sense anything.”
“Nor I; the council network has been corrupted. Probability dictates the most likely cause is the Curator attempting to mask tracks. We are meant to observe and catalog these species. He has crossed a dangerous line into meddling with futures and fates”
“Should we bring this before the council before his plans reach the boiling point?”
“Curator of Torment has done well in suggesting that it is I who is behind these matters. Insufficient evidence to the contrary will result in a decision to cast me out. As the only entity who knows the truth, there would be none left to stop the Curator’s plans.”
“What is the extent of his plans?”
“It appears to be a play for power in the Council. To what end is yet to be clear. I have detected a tear in the fabric of portal energy over the mass they call “Marae Lassel”. The Curator’s next move must be there.”
“I shall investigate the disturbance.”
“This is far worse than before. Enlist the aid from the beings of Dereth. We cannot do this alone and they must be ready for the fight that may be brought to their door. We will need to –“
Spinning around quickly the Reaver of Dreams searched through the energies around them. After a short moment he readdressed the Vision of Horror. “Act quickly for my time of hiding is coming to an end. I must present my case to the council soon. Go now. Do not fail. Our very existence may rely on you alone.”
The Vision of Horror sped away and vanished into the energies. A trio of Virindi descended upon the Reaver. “You have been summoned at behest of the Council.”
“I will report momentarily.”
“The council requires your immediate presence. We are to escort you there.”
The council stood in a crescent facing the Reaver of Dreams as he entered the chambers. “You are accused of acts against the foundation and structure of the Singularity. What have you to say?”
“One amongst you is a traitor to us all. The Curator of Torment began experimenting on our very kind, a travesty to say the least. He continues these experiments on other species, a direct violation of our procedures.”
Release Fiction
Original Link - https://www.asheronscall.com/en/content/april-2013-release-fiction
April 2013 Release Fiction
The voices have returned... I can feel them, clawing at my sanity, ever pushing me to simply give in, to stop being me. I don’t know what I’ve done to ever deserve this. I’m not a bad person; I’ve never gone out of my way to hurt anyone. I’m just an explorer... Perhaps writing down their story will quiet them again.
For a time, after the reordering of the fragments, there was peace. The emotion-driven fragments had collected into small cells of similar fragments that shared the same emotional ties, as if calling them. Then most of these cells wandered deeper into Portalspace, lacking direction or reason to guide them. Meanwhile, the Singularity had nearly finished sorting itself into one collective whole, and had begun to turn its gaze both outward and inward, to see what could have caused this change to the Self.
The voices see this time as the first great change in themselves, the completion of the first Singularity and the loss of Emotion, so I will call this the Second Virindi Age.
In the infancy of the Singularity, it acted with great caution, slowly and carefully seeking for any clues that could explain the fracturing of the Entity. Over time, however, its confidence grew. Some of the Singularity was dedicated to the research of what had become of the Entity, while the majority was focused on a greater understanding of the present situation they found themselves in. So absorbed the Singularity had become in self-study, it had all but forgotten those fragments that had held the emotional half of the Entity’s existence.
The voices do not comprehend time as a scale, so it is impossible to say how long passed in this exercise of self-understanding, but I get the impression that it was a very long time. Eventually however, the small section of the Singularity dedicated to understanding the Entity came to a conclusion. It could not solve the mystery of the Entity and the great change while it was missing half the equation, and it began to seek for the missing cells of emotion bound Virindi.
The first steps into the vastness of Portalspace were tenuous, slow and careful. Reason dictated caution and care was necessary when dealing with unknowns. It was not long, however, before the Singularity found signs of the passage of the cells. Small disturbances in the flows of Portalspace, echoes of interaction of these cells with the Portalspace field, each pointer along the path sped up the search. The first cells were located fairly quickly. It became clear these cells had become lost in their aimless wanderings. Soon it was decided that the cells would need a level of supervision, as they lacked the reason necessary to control or aim their wanderings. Thus the containment of the cells began.
There was no malice in the containment, just a desire to protect the self. In the beginnings of the containment, as the cells were found, they were herded back to the point of origin, thus keeping them close to those bound to Reason. This changed during the time the voices call the First Aberration.
After a good number of cells had been located and returned to the Singularity, one was found that was different than the others. While all of the cells were bound to an emotion, most of the cells were, in and of themselves, fairly peaceful and non-aggressive. The newly located cell, on the other hand, was different. It was wracked with inner turmoil, and highly aggressive to outsiders. Lacking an intellectual understanding of emotion, the Singularity treated this cell as it did the others. The herding mechanic had to be altered to deal with the aggression, but the end goal of containment remained. Some of the Virindi in the recovery units were concerned about the differences between this emotion bound cell and the others, but the Singularity as a whole did not perceive a reason for caution, outside what was needed to manipulate or motivate this new cell.
Once this cell was integrated with the others, everything changed. The aggression, hostility, the negativity of the newest cell spread through the other emotion bound Virindi like a plague. It was if a palpable darkness passed from one cell to the next in the merest instance of contact with one of the hostile cells. For no reason the Singularity could understand, all of the cells they had found were swallowed in the wave of negativity, and changed forever. A darkness had infected the emotion bound, and then war engulfed the Singularity...