[Cogwheel]

Spoiler

"Now then, to summarize, a few things happened, largely related to Exodus. First, we went to report the good news to Kilgore."

"Opeem approves of mayor. Kill-gore is good name."



"He rewarded us, in customary mayor style, with permission to enter places we want to stay away from."

"And refused to pay us with anything else, at that."



"And then there was the alchemist in Exodus. A goo enough way to clear out Opeem's massive stock of herbs? Certainly. Nothing we don't have already, though."

"Opeem's spine buckles under weight of vegetables."



"An ogre blacksmith, capable of making blessed - by which I mean steel marginally improved with boot polish and hope - equipment. Had to stop Leriam from killing him, though."

"Sorry."



"Some goblin had a belt which, apparently, made it smarter, much like the one I have. Didn't work on the goblin, and I don't think it's helping Cavil either."

"Do you enjoy being told to walk off your injuries until you bleed to death? You really do seem to be trying."



"A few miners, with absolutely no prompting, showed us to a very useful stone tablet for taking care of Lysstak. Surprisingly thoughtful compared to anyone I've met here so far."

"Good. Was getting sick of acid."

"And then... well, then there was someone we met in Exodus."



"Go away."

"Hold on, who do you work for?"

"Can't you guess?"

"Yes, but as much as I'm out of practice, I do give hope a try once in a blue moon."



"Predictable."

"A darkside loyalist? Here in Exodus? Traitor, meet my blade!"

"If you could hold off on the violence for a moment, you'll realize that this is the Ruth we've been told about. Who could, I'm sure, annihilate us. By the way, why haven't you done that yet?"



"What? What do you mean?"

"Villain's code."



"True. I have vowed to burn them for their crimes against Me..."

"Alright, keep talking, just try not to kill us."



"Change his mind when he wants to kill us? With tales of our competence, of all things? Good luck with that."

"Not to interrupt anything, but I was about to execute justice upon evildoers and so on."

"We will... consider this. Keep an ear out."

"What? You can't do that!"

"Relax, he's only saying that to buy time."



"Opeem is confused."

"I would never expect you to understand the nuances of politics, don't you worry about it."

"But.. Opeem stabbed nuances. Killed it. Like time. Doubleconfusing."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So, we found and killed this Lysstak bandit. Worked for the darkside loyalists, keeping a hold on the Drake Pillars."



"We also definitely weren't contacted by agents of Dorikas."

"Right. We'd best head off to Exodus before the paragon of discretion starts talking again."



"Ah. Interesting... good prices to put on power, certainly."

"Doubly so since we're ludicrously wealthy. Mind you, Tranquility could always have some expensive yet effective spells to buy... speaking of which, we'd best open the gate."




"...Bloody wizards."

"Dragonslaying! The hero's call to adventure! Maybe this Gladwell isn't so bad after all?"

Spoiler

At this point, we have NO choice about killing the drake. None at all. We do, however, have a major choice to make in future. Do we join the loyalists, or don't we? This will happen later and significantly alter the mid/endgame, plus (I assume) the ending. I have never played as the darkside loyalists before, so I'll be flying blind, so to speak.

Anyway, vote away on that. This may be the single most important vote to ever come up in this playthrough (the second most important one being, most likely, Gladwell).