If Lara enslaved Boss Spider, and wiped out all other monsters. That means we have destroyed this dungeon?
please please say it is so. I do not want Spider Goddess to have one has her seat of power.
There is debt to be paid, and taking what is hers is just the start of it.
Yeah, either this is going to turn around somehow (Lara Drider re-recruited?), or LSN lied about turn 10 being the cutoff, or he creatively interpreted turn 10 being the cutoff – since we wouldn’t have been able to fully exit the temple before turn 10 started, we got the Bad End. He just gave it to us a turn early instead of letting us input a futile command on turn 9.
It has been clarified before that once the primary goal reached the dungeon autoends (see Tavern, Chapel, Caravan). Only when the goal includes “and escape” do we need to worry about getting to the exit (see Rat Vault). So, no, this is the cutscene we would have gotten regardless of, say, finishing the dungeon in turn two.
EDIT: Also, Sickass pointed out this was foreshadowed on Discord. LSN said: “You haven’t begun to see the depths of my villainy” last week.
That’s my bad. I think I must have seen the “10” in “Dungeon 10 Turn 9 Part X” and my brain just misfired.
As Jing said though, could be that we didn’t have enough move to get out by the next turn. Fingers crossed that Lara does come back, as she’s my favourite character.
1. This was unavoidable, in which case, yeah, it’s a railroad.
2. This was avoidable, in which case, rules or deceptive interpretations of the rules were added without our knowledge. Or there was some sort of “hint” we were supposed to pick on, but that’s still not an excuse to circumnavigate clearly defined rules.
And I’m sure I’ll get blamed for being a bad sport, but just to prove I’m not, it’s not the outcome we got, but how we got there. If, for instance, on turn 8, we risked opening a chest guarded by one of the tiny spiders and it turns out that they have an attack that paralyzes you for two turns, thus making us miss the deadline, I’d be like, yeah, okay, we took a risk with an unknown enemy at a late turn. And that’s still an example that most people would roll their eyes at, but I’m willing to forgive. But we played by the rules and even gave ourselves a buffer turn. Or if, like, a new goal showed up that was like “Escape by turn 15 before Lara turns into a drider” and new enemies show up or “Lara gains one point of Corruption each turn” that would be a perfect example of our greed costing us. Like if you were less greedy with her Corruption you’re rewarded with more turns. Or if you waited until turn 9 to reach the archives you now have less time to kill the new enemies and get out.
The most irksome part of this is that it literally says “On Turn 10, the wrath of the Goddess of Spiders will be unleashed” and LSN listed this as a condition of us failing, and this page is described as “Turn 9.” So not only is it careless mechanics, it’s deliberately misleading mechanics.
Realistically, would Ricki ever want to do another Bond Dungeon? Would she ever go to another dungeon undermanned, as just a duo. If Kamau approaches her and is like, “let’s go to this place, privately, without any other party members” I kinda feel like she’d be like, “nope. If ya need something, we bring a whole team or nobody at all. I saw what happened last time I did this with just one other person.” Like any normal person might be too traumatized to do two-man dungeons ever again.
Bah. I hope this is just a false alarm. Like maybe the love miraculously helps Lara regain her humanity or something. Like if this is it, then it’s not the emotional gut punch it’s supposed to be, and could be if it was actually our fault.
Also the excuse of us just not doing the Bond Dungeon doesn’t really work, since it leaves Lara’s story unresolved, and again, there’s no hint to indicate we really shouldn’t do it.
Lara turned into Drider because she used Corruption.
You can see the Boss Spider is under her controll and fights for her.
It was the only way Lara could have saved Ricki and so she pays.
as will the Goddess pay for it once we get to her. Deicide!
That’s not the point. I’m not arguing about how she got turned. I’m arguing about the story being pitched as an interactive thing where decisions matter, and getting inevitable results despite the game implying we have control over the results. If this is just a story we’re watching, fine. But it was pitched as something else. Also, what do you mean that the Goddess will pay for it? Ricki left the dungeon.
Right? Like, even if we accept that not all the Bond Dungeons have bad endings, this now means we’ll be choosing them based off of metaphysical narrative reasons, rather than how a character actually chooses things.
“Lohk is the older mentor character, and we already know most of her background, so her dungeon is likely one of the bad ones since she has a lot of death flag tropes.”
“Macadamia’s is probably safe; we haven’t met his boyfriend yet.”.
The more I think about this, the more the game seems completely ruined for me.
And again, I can handle downer endings. But narratively this was probably the worst decision that could have been made. There were so many better ways to have this EXACT thing happen, and have it feel like it made sense. This is supposed to be an emotional moment. We’re supposed to feel guilty about this! It’s supposed to be a tragic consequence! But it’s not. Having it forced upon us drains away all the emotion. We did what we were supposed to do and were misled.
Really makes me wonder if we actually got lucky at the Overgrown Farm or if character deaths are reserved for predetermined Story Moments.
All I can say is that if Lara’s really permanently gone, my investment with the story is completely sapped, and again, NOT because she gets a tragic end, but because it was executed poorly.
If this cutscene was inevitable, then why lure us with a fake potential for more Bond? If it wasn’t inevitable, and there was a way to avoid it, then there was nothing that could hint at this. I’d be more willing to accept this outcome if it actually felt like we messed up. The rules explicitly stated that the dungeon auto-ends once the goal was met. If it was a really hard goal and we took a risk, okay fine. A good example of this would have been if we lost a character in the Overgrown Farm. I’d be more willing to accept that because, hey, we rolled those dice when we didn’t need to. But this feels kinda cheap, not gonna lie. And now it’s like, we don’t have as much incentive to do Bond Dungeons because we basically have no control over the outcome.
I guess there’s still more cutscene, possibly, but if that’s really it, I feel cheated.
I don’t think Lara is going to leave the party, at least not permanently. She clearly has more of her mental faculties than the other Driders, and is just distressed by her transformation. It’s possible that she might leave for a Dungeon or two though, but right now things are perfectly set up for Ricki to confess to Lara and say something like ‘this doesn’t change a thing’ or ‘actually I think giant spiders are hot’.
As for how the transformation changed her: my guess is that she’ll retain her Corruption mechanic and that she’ll have new abilities as a Drider. And possibly drawbacks as well; I don’t think she’ll be able to wear greaves anymore for example.
I think maxing out Corruption would have turned her into a hostile Drider that we would have had to put down, and possibly reaching Turn 10 would have done something similar. Now, she’s already a Drider, but one that will retain her sanity until she hits maximum Corruption.
Getting removed from the character page is probably just a red herring, plus an opportunity to draw new backgrounds, sprites, etc.
I’d be willing to accept a red herring. I definitely will feel cheated if it’s not, though. The story isn’t completely lost in my eyes unless it confirms 100% that Lara is permanently gone through no fault of our own.
Actually I really like this idea, and it makes a lot of sense. Maybe the upgrade is that she can use her spider powers freely now, without gaining Corruption, since like, she’s already a drider. She was going to be an evil drider, but the reward for completing the Bond Dungeon in time is that she retains her sanity, even as a drider (as opposed to losing her for good if we failed). And it leaves room for further character development, as she comes to terms with her new form. We have a skeleton on the crew now, too. Maybe Coccyx can get some character development as they help her realize that becoming something new isn’t always a bad thing. Seriously this would be such an interesting path for her arc to take and completely redeem the story.
Seriously, though, if the story takes the path you’re suggesting, it’s not only saved, but enhanced. Like that would be a stroke of creative genius honestly. There’s so much potential with it! Like imagine how profound a moment you have if the Gang of Weirdos still chooses to accept Lara for who she is, despite her transformation.
my guess is that she’ll retain her Corruption mechanic
From my POV, that’s out of question 🙂 What we just saw, is exactly what would happen if we overdosed Corruption earlier, or if we broke the secondary goal in this dungeon. Lara maxed out the Corruption and morphed. But once it’s done one way or another, there’s no point in tracking Corruption any further. She might retain some skills similar to those from earlier paid-with-corruption, but now they could simply be x-times-usable per dungeon, like Lohk’s channeling. Webbing the walls? Alright, she’s a spider now, why not. But why would a spider get some ‘corruption’ for using his own built-in skills? Etc.
Other than that, I totally agree. If we maxed out the corruption earlier just by the overuse of her skills, we’d probably end up with Lara morphed just the same as now, but without the “bonding” part, and without any sliver of a chance of progressing further. But we didn’t.
I think we’ve arrived at the “normal, good ending”, actually. Lara learned about her girlfriend’s motives. Ricky survived, Lara survived (technically). Ricky accompanied Lara to the end (of that part of the story). Lara’s bond with Ricky could technically have grown, even if Lara’s been monsterized.
Lara had a sword floating over her head since the very beginning, the Corruption. I didn’t notice a single thing that would hint at her being strong and adamant about not ever using her skills anymore. Meaning, corruption and morphing would eventually catch up with her. We could refuse to play through her story and kinda boycott her character, ok, but if we ever decided to actually go through it, I am totally not surprised she would end up morphing.
I really think we’ve not screwed up and we just got the full story as it is in the harsh world they live in. I just wonder, if we have just maxed out the bond, Ricky will probably get an in-game benefit for completing this arc (and emotional damage), but will Lara’s remain a player-character with her character sheet totally rewritten, or will she stay as an NPC lurking somewhere at the manor? She still has her room in the tower, and it actually seems quite spider-friendly.
The way I like to see it, which could easily be wrong, Lara will find a way to reduce her corruption. It will probably involve the smokes, as was hinted way back shortly after she was introduced, and would tie in with her aquiring Indira’s lighter. This way it would conserve her corruption mechanic for use in dungeons, at the cost of the transformation if overused. Her addiction would then allow her to always have a way to reduce a point of corruption per dungeon, and thus be able to freely use a spider ability once per dungeon.
My hope is that soon in one of the next pages Ricky finds Lara, accepts her as she is, and offers her cigaretes back. And then Lara, now farther from the Temple and surrounded by the things she loves, manages to block out Lolth’s influence just enough to temporarily undo her transformation, allowing her back at the party at 9/10 corruption.
And then when they get back with nothing but rags for pants Mac would say “See? I told you guys it was a date!”
Hold on, that’s Lara’s shirt but it isn’t her haircut. No eye-covering bang, just the (black) widow’s peak making a heart face. That’s Indira’s haircut. Lara picked out that shirt, maybe she had seen it before.
Of course, we wouldn’t get the whole spider face with the standard haircut, so that could be a quirk of transformation (along with not wearing the poison robes while Ricki still has bat armour). Checking… I8P21, Indira’s hair was also longer. I8P25 also moves the hair aside. This probably isn’t the twist.
Either way, I like what is implied to be a pink skull on her spider-abdomen.
I don’t think Ricky would mistake someone for Lara, and Ricky seems convinced it’s her. And we get a hint with these pink decors. And it fits the story perfectly. Lara wasn’t strong-willed character to refrain from using her powers, going all-out in a time like feels totally in-character for her, and we suspected for a long time that maxing out the corruption will end up in morphing into a kind-of-a-moster.. All pieces fit too well for this drider to be not Lara.
Maybe the order of the dungeons does really matter. Falling for the bait of the “shipping” dungeon and ignoring the other more important ones might have been what brought this. Bond dungeons can be postponed after all.
🙁
Could this one?
Lara disappeared from characters page. It’s over…
:O
You cant do that! Nooo
If Lara enslaved Boss Spider, and wiped out all other monsters. That means we have destroyed this dungeon?
please please say it is so. I do not want Spider Goddess to have one has her seat of power.
There is debt to be paid, and taking what is hers is just the start of it.
Deicide!
There are other sects of the cult, and this temple only recently and surprisingly turned into a dungeon. Destroying the dungeon won’t be enough.
Lara already dealt a good blow by cutting off the flow of sacrifices.
Got too greedy with the chests. Should’ve been out by turn 9
Which we were. This is a railroad.
Yeah, either this is going to turn around somehow (Lara Drider re-recruited?), or LSN lied about turn 10 being the cutoff, or he creatively interpreted turn 10 being the cutoff – since we wouldn’t have been able to fully exit the temple before turn 10 started, we got the Bad End. He just gave it to us a turn early instead of letting us input a futile command on turn 9.
It has been clarified before that once the primary goal reached the dungeon autoends (see Tavern, Chapel, Caravan). Only when the goal includes “and escape” do we need to worry about getting to the exit (see Rat Vault). So, no, this is the cutscene we would have gotten regardless of, say, finishing the dungeon in turn two.
EDIT: Also, Sickass pointed out this was foreshadowed on Discord. LSN said: “You haven’t begun to see the depths of my villainy” last week.
That’s my bad. I think I must have seen the “10” in “Dungeon 10 Turn 9 Part X” and my brain just misfired.
As Jing said though, could be that we didn’t have enough move to get out by the next turn. Fingers crossed that Lara does come back, as she’s my favourite character.
There are only two possible outcomes:
1. This was unavoidable, in which case, yeah, it’s a railroad.
2. This was avoidable, in which case, rules or deceptive interpretations of the rules were added without our knowledge. Or there was some sort of “hint” we were supposed to pick on, but that’s still not an excuse to circumnavigate clearly defined rules.
And I’m sure I’ll get blamed for being a bad sport, but just to prove I’m not, it’s not the outcome we got, but how we got there. If, for instance, on turn 8, we risked opening a chest guarded by one of the tiny spiders and it turns out that they have an attack that paralyzes you for two turns, thus making us miss the deadline, I’d be like, yeah, okay, we took a risk with an unknown enemy at a late turn. And that’s still an example that most people would roll their eyes at, but I’m willing to forgive. But we played by the rules and even gave ourselves a buffer turn. Or if, like, a new goal showed up that was like “Escape by turn 15 before Lara turns into a drider” and new enemies show up or “Lara gains one point of Corruption each turn” that would be a perfect example of our greed costing us. Like if you were less greedy with her Corruption you’re rewarded with more turns. Or if you waited until turn 9 to reach the archives you now have less time to kill the new enemies and get out.
The most irksome part of this is that it literally says “On Turn 10, the wrath of the Goddess of Spiders will be unleashed” and LSN listed this as a condition of us failing, and this page is described as “Turn 9.” So not only is it careless mechanics, it’s deliberately misleading mechanics.
Realistically, would Ricki ever want to do another Bond Dungeon? Would she ever go to another dungeon undermanned, as just a duo. If Kamau approaches her and is like, “let’s go to this place, privately, without any other party members” I kinda feel like she’d be like, “nope. If ya need something, we bring a whole team or nobody at all. I saw what happened last time I did this with just one other person.” Like any normal person might be too traumatized to do two-man dungeons ever again.
Bah. I hope this is just a false alarm. Like maybe the love miraculously helps Lara regain her humanity or something. Like if this is it, then it’s not the emotional gut punch it’s supposed to be, and could be if it was actually our fault.
Also the excuse of us just not doing the Bond Dungeon doesn’t really work, since it leaves Lara’s story unresolved, and again, there’s no hint to indicate we really shouldn’t do it.
Lara turned into Drider because she used Corruption.
You can see the Boss Spider is under her controll and fights for her.
It was the only way Lara could have saved Ricki and so she pays.
as will the Goddess pay for it once we get to her.
Deicide!
That’s not the point. I’m not arguing about how she got turned. I’m arguing about the story being pitched as an interactive thing where decisions matter, and getting inevitable results despite the game implying we have control over the results. If this is just a story we’re watching, fine. But it was pitched as something else. Also, what do you mean that the Goddess will pay for it? Ricki left the dungeon.
This is not the wrath of the godess its lara who got corupted for using her powers
The best part is that we were counting on Lara to easily beat the poisonous well dungeon. There goes that plan.
There go all bond dungeons.
Right? Like, even if we accept that not all the Bond Dungeons have bad endings, this now means we’ll be choosing them based off of metaphysical narrative reasons, rather than how a character actually chooses things.
“Lohk is the older mentor character, and we already know most of her background, so her dungeon is likely one of the bad ones since she has a lot of death flag tropes.”
“Macadamia’s is probably safe; we haven’t met his boyfriend yet.”.
The more I think about this, the more the game seems completely ruined for me.
And again, I can handle downer endings. But narratively this was probably the worst decision that could have been made. There were so many better ways to have this EXACT thing happen, and have it feel like it made sense. This is supposed to be an emotional moment. We’re supposed to feel guilty about this! It’s supposed to be a tragic consequence! But it’s not. Having it forced upon us drains away all the emotion. We did what we were supposed to do and were misled.
Really makes me wonder if we actually got lucky at the Overgrown Farm or if character deaths are reserved for predetermined Story Moments.
All I can say is that if Lara’s really permanently gone, my investment with the story is completely sapped, and again, NOT because she gets a tragic end, but because it was executed poorly.
Id say she isnt, maybe will come back as a cool drider now.
NONE is safe. Not even Phoenix’.
Seems a little unfair. We met the goal.
If this cutscene was inevitable, then why lure us with a fake potential for more Bond? If it wasn’t inevitable, and there was a way to avoid it, then there was nothing that could hint at this. I’d be more willing to accept this outcome if it actually felt like we messed up. The rules explicitly stated that the dungeon auto-ends once the goal was met. If it was a really hard goal and we took a risk, okay fine. A good example of this would have been if we lost a character in the Overgrown Farm. I’d be more willing to accept that because, hey, we rolled those dice when we didn’t need to. But this feels kinda cheap, not gonna lie. And now it’s like, we don’t have as much incentive to do Bond Dungeons because we basically have no control over the outcome.
I guess there’s still more cutscene, possibly, but if that’s really it, I feel cheated.
So do we all.
I don’t think Lara is going to leave the party, at least not permanently. She clearly has more of her mental faculties than the other Driders, and is just distressed by her transformation. It’s possible that she might leave for a Dungeon or two though, but right now things are perfectly set up for Ricki to confess to Lara and say something like ‘this doesn’t change a thing’ or ‘actually I think giant spiders are hot’.
As for how the transformation changed her: my guess is that she’ll retain her Corruption mechanic and that she’ll have new abilities as a Drider. And possibly drawbacks as well; I don’t think she’ll be able to wear greaves anymore for example.
I think maxing out Corruption would have turned her into a hostile Drider that we would have had to put down, and possibly reaching Turn 10 would have done something similar. Now, she’s already a Drider, but one that will retain her sanity until she hits maximum Corruption.
Getting removed from the character page is probably just a red herring, plus an opportunity to draw new backgrounds, sprites, etc.
I’d be willing to accept a red herring. I definitely will feel cheated if it’s not, though. The story isn’t completely lost in my eyes unless it confirms 100% that Lara is permanently gone through no fault of our own.
Actually I really like this idea, and it makes a lot of sense. Maybe the upgrade is that she can use her spider powers freely now, without gaining Corruption, since like, she’s already a drider. She was going to be an evil drider, but the reward for completing the Bond Dungeon in time is that she retains her sanity, even as a drider (as opposed to losing her for good if we failed). And it leaves room for further character development, as she comes to terms with her new form. We have a skeleton on the crew now, too. Maybe Coccyx can get some character development as they help her realize that becoming something new isn’t always a bad thing. Seriously this would be such an interesting path for her arc to take and completely redeem the story.
Seriously, though, if the story takes the path you’re suggesting, it’s not only saved, but enhanced. Like that would be a stroke of creative genius honestly. There’s so much potential with it! Like imagine how profound a moment you have if the Gang of Weirdos still chooses to accept Lara for who she is, despite her transformation.
Coccyx became something new? No, Coccyx always was an immortal skeleton archer, they would remember otherwise, wouldn’t they?
(Regarding the other content of your post: yes.)
Yep. Reserve judgement for the Dungeon Report.
Look, if she’s gone for a whole dungeon I won’t hang around to wait for her return.
From my POV, that’s out of question 🙂 What we just saw, is exactly what would happen if we overdosed Corruption earlier, or if we broke the secondary goal in this dungeon. Lara maxed out the Corruption and morphed. But once it’s done one way or another, there’s no point in tracking Corruption any further. She might retain some skills similar to those from earlier paid-with-corruption, but now they could simply be x-times-usable per dungeon, like Lohk’s channeling. Webbing the walls? Alright, she’s a spider now, why not. But why would a spider get some ‘corruption’ for using his own built-in skills? Etc.
Other than that, I totally agree. If we maxed out the corruption earlier just by the overuse of her skills, we’d probably end up with Lara morphed just the same as now, but without the “bonding” part, and without any sliver of a chance of progressing further. But we didn’t.
I think we’ve arrived at the “normal, good ending”, actually. Lara learned about her girlfriend’s motives. Ricky survived, Lara survived (technically). Ricky accompanied Lara to the end (of that part of the story). Lara’s bond with Ricky could technically have grown, even if Lara’s been monsterized.
Lara had a sword floating over her head since the very beginning, the Corruption. I didn’t notice a single thing that would hint at her being strong and adamant about not ever using her skills anymore. Meaning, corruption and morphing would eventually catch up with her. We could refuse to play through her story and kinda boycott her character, ok, but if we ever decided to actually go through it, I am totally not surprised she would end up morphing.
I really think we’ve not screwed up and we just got the full story as it is in the harsh world they live in. I just wonder, if we have just maxed out the bond, Ricky will probably get an in-game benefit for completing this arc (and emotional damage), but will Lara’s remain a player-character with her character sheet totally rewritten, or will she stay as an NPC lurking somewhere at the manor? She still has her room in the tower, and it actually seems quite spider-friendly.
The way I like to see it, which could easily be wrong, Lara will find a way to reduce her corruption. It will probably involve the smokes, as was hinted way back shortly after she was introduced, and would tie in with her aquiring Indira’s lighter. This way it would conserve her corruption mechanic for use in dungeons, at the cost of the transformation if overused. Her addiction would then allow her to always have a way to reduce a point of corruption per dungeon, and thus be able to freely use a spider ability once per dungeon.
My hope is that soon in one of the next pages Ricky finds Lara, accepts her as she is, and offers her cigaretes back. And then Lara, now farther from the Temple and surrounded by the things she loves, manages to block out Lolth’s influence just enough to temporarily undo her transformation, allowing her back at the party at 9/10 corruption.
And then when they get back with nothing but rags for pants Mac would say “See? I told you guys it was a date!”
Hold on, that’s Lara’s shirt but it isn’t her haircut. No eye-covering bang, just the (black) widow’s peak making a heart face. That’s Indira’s haircut. Lara picked out that shirt, maybe she had seen it before.
Of course, we wouldn’t get the whole spider face with the standard haircut, so that could be a quirk of transformation (along with not wearing the poison robes while Ricki still has bat armour). Checking… I8P21, Indira’s hair was also longer. I8P25 also moves the hair aside. This probably isn’t the twist.
Either way, I like what is implied to be a pink skull on her spider-abdomen.
I don’t think Ricky would mistake someone for Lara, and Ricky seems convinced it’s her. And we get a hint with these pink decors. And it fits the story perfectly. Lara wasn’t strong-willed character to refrain from using her powers, going all-out in a time like feels totally in-character for her, and we suspected for a long time that maxing out the corruption will end up in morphing into a kind-of-a-moster.. All pieces fit too well for this drider to be not Lara.
The pink skull on the abdomen is her pants.
Did we screwed up? :< I don’t understand what we did wrong.
We didn’t do anything wrong, we are just being railroaded, is all
Maybe the order of the dungeons does really matter. Falling for the bait of the “shipping” dungeon and ignoring the other more important ones might have been what brought this. Bond dungeons can be postponed after all.
If this is the true ending, then no other bond dungeon will ever be done. But I guess we are being trolled.