Okay. Off and on I’ve been playing the final Living World season: The Icebrood Saga, while also tending to the Skyscale collections. I’ve reached a point that I have to wait ’till 7pm today (the daily server reset) until I (hopefully) will feed her for the last time, and she’ll stop eating all my damn gold (as I’ll be done with the ‘Feeding Skyscales’ collection)!! Fucking bitch of a dragon!
Anyways, I have to address the elephant in the room. Or maybe I should say, the Elder Dragon in the room: Aurene. Now, I’ll do this in two ways. First is a TL;DR version, and a spoiler version if you want more detail (and you’ve played through the season).
First, the TL;DR version: I got to a point in the season where somehow I was yeeted out of it and thrown into End of Dragons, without knowing. Well.. I can’t really say that. I knew something was off with what certain story characters said, but I just didn’t know what the hell happened until I saw the splash screen for End of Dragons.
I thought that was a perfect way to end the season.. but it still felt off.
Now, the spoiler version;
I have to start with the whispers when you get out of the main Charr area. Occasionally while playing, you keep being whispered by an unknown voice, coming from an unknown location. It sounds female. It asks you if you’re “tired”, or to “kill them”. Turns out it’s Jormag’s champion who’s doing the whispering. ‘She’ keeps trying to fuck with you, to cloud your judgement. But she doesn’t only go after you, but your companions.
Now before I continue, may I just say I actually like the decision of making some of
the Living World story content, open world that you could get help with? That’s pretty good. I think the inspiration came from Dragonfall, where your companions help with getting camps set up in the three biomes of the zone.
Anyway, the plot of The Icebrood Saga goes around.. Rytlock having a son many years ago named ‘Ryland Steelcatcher’, who’s been influenced by his sire’s old mentor: ‘Bangar Ruinbringer’ (and the reason why he got the ‘Tribune’ title).
But after Aurene tries to ‘help out’ by branding the last known minion
of Kralkatorrik, Bangar gets jealous of you having an Elder Dragon ‘at your
command’ (which you know, that’s not true. Aurene is a free spirit). But he doesn’t believe you cannot command one, and.. goes to control Jormag, as he feels “if the Commander can do it, so can I!”
What’s worse, he’s leading most of the other Charr legions right to Jormag’s
doorstep, where it’ll turn them all against us. ….Yeah, not a good thing. So you’re forced to play politics and kick Jormag minion ass, while trying to not freeze to death.
And the reason why they’re following him, isn’t from mind control. It’s just the itch of
a Charr you just can’t scratch. And that is, having a target. With Kralkatorrik dead, they want a new target… by endangering the peace treaty with humanity. They feel with the power of Jormag under their control, they’ll be able to finally get revenge on
humanity.
Now that I’ve gone over the plot, I’ve got to say how my character has the same emotional feelings for Aurene as I do: to protect her. When something happens to her, he goes through my emotions. It’s all he thinks about anymore.
I’ve lost Tybalt… I’m not losing another one. But, she’s also the one I have to talk about. As she.. does something to the timeline. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
So like I said, you discover who’s the voice. But you also discover the name of Jormag’s champion: Drakkar. And you’re on your way to silence the Mouth of Jormag, to stop the whispers (and free the Koda, the polar bear people). You finally get to their lair, only for it to turn two of your companions against you. Braham also has new powers, which he will use to kill Drakkar. Yes, it won’t be you making the final blow this time.
So you got to stop your companions from killing you (and themselves), while Braham prepares to face Drakkar. Managed to do that, then Bangar shows up.. mad he couldn’t do it and tries to take your life by using Braham’s bow against you. He nearly succeeds, if it wasn’t for Aurene who managed to patch you up while you were knocked out.
I was pleasantly surprised to see her alive and well again. Little did I know, where I would be. I was in the confusing area that I thought was the way to the Siegebreaker in Living World Season 1, called the ‘Eye of the North’.
And somehow, being there.. seemed to skip the timeline so much that I got taken out
of Season 5, and put into End of Dragons, where Taimi talks about how all the Elder Dragons are defeated, including Primordius and Jormag… HOW?! I never had a chance to defeat them! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!
Checking again, I still have three more episodes left of The Icebrood Saga to do. I still don’t know why it skipped completely past the season, but that’s so fucking annoying.
I still remember when I completed the first episode, I got mail saying “nice job completing the episode! Tune in for more!”.. was The Icebrood Saga, never completed? Is that why there was a time skip? Or did they just forget to remove some things they left in that shouldn’t had happened, since I own the entire season?
EDIT: So, it seems the season simply bugged out on me. I was able to go back and continue where I left off. I still don’t know what happened, or why it bugged out. But I’ve been told that a lot of End of Dragons content got cut, and moved to the season.
That definitely feels like an ArenaNet thing to do.. knowing people will buy your content anyway. It’s a win-win (for them. Not for the consumer).