Recap: Part 2

So, where were we? Ah yes, Silven has settled down to a boring scholarly life to find something worthy of Professor Grennel's attention and finally unlock the secrets of his strange universe. It doesn't last long.

After a little while of reading all the books he can get hold of, Silven is frustrated that even the literature seems aimed at helping him to kill things. He finds himself in Rockborough, and remembers a certain mouse in Desert Marsh telling him that this is the site of the cathedral in which someone else like him, Ashleigh, fell to her death after using one of her abilities. Nobody in the cathedral has heard of this woman, however, and after exploring the higher floors, he is ambushed by a new enemy: a Master of Deathness. He barely survives by using the assassin's dramatic stagger animation against him. The guard that follows reveals that this is another faction focused on getting him to his destiny at the Three Toes Tavern. The guard then tries to quite literally throw him into another adventure in the cathedral's catacombs. Silven escapes again, angry at the insistence of the world in bringing him out of retirement as a hero.

A dark time of paranoia follows for Silven, a time in which he thinks the whole world exists simply to guide him to where that voice in the air wants him to go. He sneaks into Desert Marsh again to unleash his observations on Grennel, but despite hinting that he really does want to let Silven in, the professor is able to explain away all the oddities Silven has noted. Silven reels away for a booze-fuelled wallow in his self-pity.

When he wakes up the next day in a village he can't remember, he finds a letter from Olgred, the merchant with whom he devised the plan to get rich by preparing ready-made fast-travel maps. Olgred is hiding out in an abandoned town called Stonepeak, hunted by rival merchants who wish to end their competition once and for all. Silven arrives to take his share of the profit and go; however their enemies are alerted to their presence by way of singing kettle. Silven is forced to accept Olgred's invitation to become his 'eternal companion' to save him. This makes the escape from the house in which they are hiding rather more difficult, as Olgred's first priority as companion is getting in the way, but eventally Silven finds a path out. Olgred is cut to ribbons, but of course that doesn't matter because he regenerates as soon as Silven gets to safety.

After gaining a little fame by telling the former residents of Stonepeak they can go back home (earthworms and all), Silven turns his attention to the future. The pair gain access to the capital Solmond City by using the letter he obtained from Count Steinbrook in his doomed apple-harvesting quest. They use their profits from the fast-travel maps to buy a mansion just outside the city, in which a demonic portal occassionally appears. Silven traps the demons that exit this portal and uses them to heat his furnace room, establishing a surprisingly efficient heating company, Fireline, in the process. Now he has somewhere relatively safe in which to contemplate his next moves. He continues his research and discovers supsicious links between people and places, as if everything in this world is interconnected by some sort of creator. He uses his knowledge to craft an instant messaging system to allow people to communicate over large distances. He employs Olgred's former enemies and spins this off as a separate company: Silverlink.

Other than the fact he is confined to his protected headquarters, away from mice and assassins and terrorknights, Silven is finally at peace. His companies grow and he establishes a new town, Limetop, to manufacture Silverlink's messaging devices. Oldeburgh seems to become a smaller place due to Silven's fast-travel and IM developments. However, his keen observations and intellect come with a flip side. He doesn't belong in this world, it seems, and the people turn on his companies after a heating disaster (brought on by a special Christmas event) and a PR stunt gone horribly wrong, in which Silven nearly drowns a group of children after failing to understand that nobody can swim. He is confused by his strange knowledge of physics and rules other than those that seem to be in play in his world, like an echo of somewhere else. He is also angry that despite his promise to stop trying to help people (which usually ends in disaster), he is becoming more involved again. Finally, he comes to a revelation - if he has already changed the world so much using his otherworldly intellect, perhaps he can research ways to change the rules of this world altogether and make it a truly better place to live, with no focus on killing and adventure. He uses his status as a recluse to allow Olgred to take over the running of both companies, and sets out again to look for ways to expand his influence.

He starts a couple of random side-quests and soon makes a discovery - plants that seem to generate monsters whenever he comes too close. These eventually become the TWEDIS plants that Silverlink uses to transport vast quantities of goods around the kingdom. He also discovers a crowd of adventurers waiting for their turn to slay a monster to gain its loot. After a period of observation, he finds the monster reappears on a set timescale and begins to develop his idea for Monster Camps, where heroes can level up at their leisure in the lap of luxury. These two developments quickly expand Silverlink to all-powerful status.

On his walk, he eventually runs into a mouse who seems interested in his progress, but he flees. He finds himself hunted by terrorknights or assassins or both, and, using Olgred's guidance via instant messaging, he approaches Gigglewick. He mentions the quarry that the old man Folborn told him of the first time he entered the village, and Olgred excitedly arranges to meet him. Olgred explains this must be an undiscovered treasure trove which will make their fortunes. They dig up Folborn's grave looking for an entrance to the quarry and find a letter hinting at a perilous quest that Folborn and a group he belonged to were engaged with. It directs them to Folborn's ruined cottage, where they struggle to decipher the puzzle in the letter (if it exists at all). Eventually, Silven rearranges some items mentioned in the letter in a fit of anger and opens up a portal, which the pair jump into. What else do you do with a portal?

They find themselves in a village on the Unfinished Plain, where legend says gods cut content to meet their creation deadlines. Here, they are met by Wilborn, who, like the late Folborn, is a member of the Fellowship of the Glitch. Silven is aware of a plague sweeping the land which causes its victims to transform or disappear in bizarre ways. Wilborn says that this plague is just one sysmptom of the Glitch, a force born with the world which his fellowship tries to hold back, but which will eventually destroy existence itself. Silven and Olgred agree to enter the village with Wilborn, who informs them the residents have been afflicted by the Glitch. After a battle against the doomed inhabitants, Wilborn advises killing the entire population, but Silven takes pity on them and builds a moat around the village to quarantine it instead.

At Wilborn's invitation, Silven and Olgred follow him back to the fellowship's headquarters, the Cathedral of Dust, to present their findings at the village. The interview drags on, until Silven mentions he is an employee of a large company that could provide assistance to the fellowship. The brothers instantly grow suspicious and demand to know Silven's identity, heavily hinting that the company's work is somehow feeding the Glitch and its chaotic work. Silven and Olgred escape into the vaults below the cathedral, which house quarantined victims of the Glitch. They avoid the guards by entering one of the vaults and find an old man who can duplicate objects he is given using a series of hand movements. After escaping for good, Silven finds he only needs to repeat these movements to duplicate anything he wants. The world is changed forever.

Silven knows in his heart that this 'Doll Sequence', as he calls it, is unexplainable and could be used to access Grennel's research. However, he decides against this course, altering his goals yet again. Through production of infinite goods, he can make the world a better place for all - true payback after all the damage he caused in his early adventures. He splits his companies again, installing a new puppet leader, Herbie Sootroller, and creating a new department called Silverlink Stuff which he runs under a false identity to begin distributing necessities and luxuries to the people of Oldeburgh. This time, he feels, he has won at life.

As time goes by, however, Silven begins to have concerns about the Doll Sequence and its effects. He realises that infinite luxuries will simply cut off any progress and development in the world as thinkers and leaders simply settle for lots of existing stuff, without trying anything new. He also foresees that unchecked greed could lead to more conflict. He creates a quota on luxuries in an attempt to stop stagnation, much to the disgust of his inner circle of staff: Olgred, Simitest the engineer, Ulf the accountant, and Trashbag Bob the transporter.

There is also another problem: so much stuff is being transported now that the TWEDIS flowers used to hold goods have to be transported the old-fashioned way in carts, which are prey to the rebels holding the land in the grip of civil war. There are suggestions that simply releasing goods to everyone could end war forever. However, Silven is convinced that the rebels would find something else to bully people about once money was worthless. Instead, he has decided that Silverlink will officially join the war on the king's side and use its power and mercenaries to bring peace to Oldeburgh. The ways of the world work against him yet again, however, as his staff explain that if he wants rid of the rebels, he must do it alone, hack-n-slash style. Reluctantly, he agrees, starting with the rebels Warlord Wallace and Zolar Ceneron in the north. It appears the passwords and secret entrances supplied by Elsenberg will come in handy after all.

Silven levels up, buys whichever sword is the most expensive at the adventurers' market, and sets out to put an end to Warlord Wallace, in the fortress where he woke up as Sylvia so long ago. The bad news is that the sword he has chosen is an agonisingly annoying talking Gnomish sword witha fondness for rude ditties. The good news is that it is pretty powerful and helps Silven to fight his way to the heart of the fortress with relative ease.

On his way, he stumbles upon a familiar room - the prison where he was held captive before his awakening. He realises that, despite the jaunty, cheerful composure of Wallace's rebels, they are keeping women (such as himself, back in the bad old days) as sex slaves. Fuelled now by a sense of justice as well as his mission to open up his trade routes, Silven races to meet the all-too-jolly warlord. Through a conversation about a sheep-slaughtering contest, Silven is confident that his sword's stats are superior to those of his adversary's axe and launches into battle. After a rather close shave, owing to the fact he forgot to consider health, he defeats his target and realises that his destiny here is obviously to kill Wallace. So, instead, he gives him a job - as sex toy tester in the new and blossoming department of Silverlink Love.

Silven is invited to a ceremony in Desert Marsh to celebrate his freeing of the city from Wallace's blockades. He accepts his honours and new perks with boredom and restlessness. He doesn't pause to consider the changes he's making to the city - the battalion of mercenaries he has decided to station there, or the ceaseless development of his companies in new territory - or the fact that not everyone may be pleased by his growing power...

Really, he justs wants to get his work over and done with so he can go back to boredom and restlessness at home. The second and final target is Zolar Ceneron, the witch who has captured the city of Greenholme to the north. Remembering Elsenberg's advice to evade her defensive spells, he travels to Ridgecomb Manor to infiltrate the city from an unexpected angle.

Ridgecomb Manor follows all the rules of hostile buildings - it is much bigger on the inside than out. Silven struggles through hundreds of rooms filled with progressively nastier foes for days before using that curious insight of his and returning to the courtyard. True, the archway to the city is blocked, or is at least intended to be. Luckily, Silven sees the blockage for the log it is and hops on to Greenholme.

The city is beautiful, but also full of soldiers. Silven is quickly trapped by Zolar's zealots, but the soldiers haven't thought things through. Lacking their archer to pick off the intruder, they approach Silven one by one and die. Silven is free to move on, and eventually comes face to face with Zolar, the new ruler of the city. It turns out to be a bit of an unfair fight. Silven charges and is engulfed in flames. With his dying thought, he realises he has experience in hand and promptly levels up to heal and escape.

He heads off to Desert Marsh, where Lord Eleganto of the council 'accidently' hands Silven a black skull-filled poison to drink instead of the fire resistance potion he asked for. Silven is too focused on Zolar to make much of it. He returns to Greenholme and confronts the rebel sorceress once more.

This time, Zolar reveals what seems to Silven to be her true purpose - to be his partner in a gratuitous sexual escapade far from the war. For what else would a woman of power be present in this strange world? Silven's path is clear to him. It seems his destiny is to spare this enemy for sexy times. He rushes in and runs her through with his sword before she can defend herself, using her thorough lack of clothing to his advantage.

The adventure is over! Wallace is no more, Greenholme is open to trade, and Silven is free to... do what exactly?

Well, there's two more parts to this story. So obviously something.