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Author: NecroRebel
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This article contains spoilers. If you have already finished all the missions, you should have no problems with it, but if you have not, do not read it unless you do not care about learning the story before playing through the game.
First, Glint foresees the events of the story. This is fairly easy to understand, as she is called a prophet on more than one occasion. She then takes steps to ensure that her visions come true, including making some portions of her visions known to the human world at large, including, and maybe especially, the people of Orr.
Fast forward at least a few decades, maybe centuries. If Glint gave the whole story to the humans, it has been long enough so that most of it was lost. You are, of course, introduced at this point in Ascalon. The Charr have been enemies of the humans because they are the servants and worshippers of the Titans, who are demons from another, presumably hellish world. As evidence of the Charr's service to the Titans, I point to a couple of different sources. First, in the manual's descriptions of the Charr it says they set up effigies in the shape of their gods whenever they set up camp. Their gods are not identified in the manual, though. However, north of the Wall in the pre-searing area there are objects that appear to be made of wood, some of which are burnt and blackened, that just happen to be replicas of a Burning Titan. These effigies also appear during the Fires in the North and Fires in the East quests after the Searing where the Charr Flame Keepers that you have to kill are. Furthermore, during The Last Day Dawns quest, there are Charr fighting alongside Titans, despite the fact that in every other area that Titans exist they attempt to destroy all life. Together, these three things make it pretty obvious that the Charr serve the Titans.
Anyway, the Charr may or may not know of the Flameseeker Prophecies. If they do, they may have intentionally driven the Chosen to Kryta in an effort to bring their gods to the world. If they do not know of the Flameseeker Prophecies, we assume that they are attempting to destroy the humans because that is what their gods would want and drive the Chosen west completely unintentionally. Either way, the people of Ascalon, including the Chosen, are driven west into Kryta, where the Undead, lead by the Lich, are attacking.
The Undead, through the Lich, obviously know at least portions of the Prophecies and likely know about the Mursaat as well. I will get to explaining the Mursaat later. The Undead are largely just designed to drive the Chosen into the White Mantle such that they will find out about the Mantle murdering Chosen and be turned against them. This part has shaky evidence, but you must realize that after you are turned against the Mantle you never really fight the Undead again. I claim that this is because the Lich no longer sets the Undead against you except as token resistance in Riverside Province and Sanctum Cay. During this period, the Lich, as Vizier Khilbron, makes himself known to Evennia, who, as leader of the Shining Blade, is exactly as she appears. She is attempting to free her nation from evil oppressors and murderers. Khilbron makes the deal with Evennia to aid her in exchange for the Scepter of Orr, which he knows will allow him to control the Titans. In order to assist the Chosen, who he meets at Sanctum Cay, and to convince them that both he is not Undead and that the Scepter will help them against the Mantle, he claims to use it to control the Undead. In actual fact, he was the creator and lord of the Undead all along and had no need of other tools to control them.
After Sanctum Cay, Khilbron brings the Chosen to the Crystal Desert to gain power and Ascend because he knows that they are unable to stand against the Mursaat without it. He needs them to be able to stand against, and destroy, the Mursaat because even with all of his Undead hordes he cannot. Sometime while the Chosen are taking part in the Trials of Ascension, Vizier Khilbron travels to the Northern Shiverpeaks near the Frost Gate, where Rurik is buried/hung up/whatever the Stone Summit did to him. He does this because he knows that Rurik would be a powerful Undead that the Chosen would be unlikely to fight their hardest against, since the Prince had been their companion, ally, and perhaps even friend in the past. The two of them then travel southwards, towards Thunderhead Keep.
Meanwhile, the Chosen have all Ascended and are speaking to Glint. She tells them about the Mursaat, who are beings bent upon conquering the whole world. Thus, the Mursaat are evil beings. Presumably, since their strongholds as well as their magically-animated Jade automatons appear to be made out of materials from the Rind of Fire, they originated in that area, as did the Seer's people and the Eidolons. Glint does not tell them that following Vizier Khilbron will unleash the Titans for a few reasons. One, she knows that without the Chosen unleashing the Titans the Mursaat will overwhelm and destroy them by sheer weight of numbers, ultimately conquering the entire world and crushing it under their boot (so to speak). Two, she is a force of good and so wants to stop the murder of innocents that the Mursaat and Mantle are carrying out to seal the Titans, and the only way to both seal the Titans and stop the murders is to have a single massively powerful soul sealing the Door of Komalie rather than dozens of lesser ones, meaning that the Lich's soul was necessary. Three, she just wanted her visions to come true so that she could say that she was exactly right about what would happen.
After leaving Glint's company, she sends the Chosen to Droknar's Forge, where they learn of the Shining Blade's retreat into the mountains. They then take part in an effort to free Evennia and Saidra because they consider them friends and leaders. This is largely unimportant to the story except that it allows the Chosen to realize that the Mursaat have the Spectral Agony attack that can destroy them very easily. As such, they travel to the Iron Mines of Moladune, where the Dwarves' legends claim a powerful magician resides that can help against the Mursaat. There, they find the Seer, who is a member of a second race from the Ring of Fire that the Mursaat had warred with and virtually wiped out. The Eidolon is another creature from the Ring of Fire that the Mursaat had almost wiped out because the species had developed the ability to resist their agonizing touch. Because the Seer, who is a neutral player in the story, hates the Mursaat for driving its race to the edge of extinction, it assists the Chosen who the dragon Glint had told it would be capable of destroying its ancient racial enemies. During this time, the Stone Summit take Thunderhead Keep, so the Chosen travel to help their dwarven allies.
During the battle for Thunderhead Keep, the armies of the White Mantle are pretty much smashed, their main spiritual and political leader, Confessor Dorian, is killed, and the Mantle is just in general destroyed. Once the siege is almost over, Vizier Khilbron teleports himself to Thunderhead Keep and raises some Undead servants to allow the siege to at last be broken. He then leads the Chosen and Brechnar Ironhammer, along with some other dwarves, to the portal that the Mursaat had constructed in the Shiverpeaks to allow them to travel from there to the Ring of Fire (you can see this if you watch the whole ending cinematic for Thunderhead Keep). The Chosen and Brechnar use the portal to teleport to Ember Light Camp. Later, Vizier Khilbron manages to get away from Jalis Ironhammer and teleports back to where he had left Rurik, who was relatively nearby. Together, the Lich and Rurik use the portal to travel to the Ring of Fire, probably near Ember Light Camp but not in Ember Light Camp.
During the next while, everything is as it seems. The Chosen, assisted to a certain degree by Vizier Khilbron, smash the defenses the Mursaat have set up to defend the Door of Komalie, Brechnar Ironhammer dies, and eventually the Door is opened, bringing forth the Titans. Using the Scepter of Orr, the Lich commands the Titans and sends them to the great cities of the world to destroy them. However, the Chosen then proceed to break the Titans' defenses around the portals allowing them entrance to the world, destroy the portals themselves, and ultimately go after the Lich. Thinking Rurik would be able to destroy the Chosen alone, the Lich sets him against them, but he is the put to rest once more. Rurik, with his last ounce of strength, tells the Chosen how they can destroy the Lich and close the Door of Komalie again so that no more portals could be opened.
Normally, even the Chosen would be unable to destroy the Lich because even if his soul was removed from his body it would be able to reattach itself, making the Lich effectively immortal. However, by using the Bloodstone's effect of trapping souls that are released atop it, the Chosen are able to slowly weaken the link between the Lich's body and spirit. It takes multiple attempts, which is why you have to "kill" the Lich more than once, but eventually, the Lich's soul is entirely pulled out of his body and is trapped in the Bloodstone. Because the Lich's soul is so incredibly powerful, his soul alone seals the Door of Komalie, presumably for all eternity, though this is unknown.
At this point the missions are over, but the story is not quite over. The Scepter of Orr disappears to parts unknown, the Chosen escape the Ring of Fire, and the volcano erupts. The Titans have, as per the Lich's orders, gone out from the Ring of Fire to destroy all animals in the world, starting with major cities. During their exodus, the Mursaat, having no place to go and being animals themselves, are slaughtered by the Titans. Presumably, they are all either driven into the Fissure of Woe or into extinction, fulfilling the prophetic visions of their destruction that the Seer mentioned. The Titans that are on the world are then destroyed during the post-endgame Titans quests.
I suspect, personally, that the Scepter was taken into safekeeping by Glint at least until such a time when the Titans were no longer upon the world because the Scepter was forcing them to continue the Lich's orders, even after he was dead. Presumably, if the Scepter had been destroyed before the Door had opened, the Mursaat would have managed to overwhelm and destroy the Chosen and would have subjugated the world. The Mursaat didn't just have the Mantle smash it immediately after it was found, though, because destroying it without proper precautions would have unleashed all its power in one massive burst. Though the Scepter's true power isn't really described, if it is capable of commanding an entire army of what might as well be arch-demons it must be pretty d***ed powerful. Releasing that much power may full well have incinerated the planet, but the Mursaat presumably know how to contain that energy if they intended to destroy it at all. After all, an artifact of that much raw power could have been very useful to a race such as the Mursaat.
However, if the Scepter of Orr was destroyed after the Door of Komalie was opened, the Titans would no longer have been constrained to go to Lion's Arch, Thunderhead Keep, and Rin, as the Lich ordered them to. I admit, there is a bit of a plot hole here since the Titans quests involve the defense of Lion's Arch, the Henge of Denravi, Ascalon City, and Droknar's Forge rather than the three places the Lich ordered Titans to go to, but unfortunately I have no explanation for this. However, if the Scepter was destroyed, the Titans would be free to incinerate everywhere in the world rather than places that are moderately able to defend themselves. In other words, destroying the Scepter, even in such a fashion that the destruction of the Scepter itself was safe, would have caused more devastation throughout the world than simply allowing the Titans to go would have. Because Glint didn't want this to happen, she did not tell the Chosen to do it or even how to do it. On top of that, until the end of Abbadon's mouth the Chosen believed the holder of the Scepter to be an ally, and after that they were occupied doing other things and so couldn't have broken the thing.
You will notice that I hardly mention the Stone Summit dwarves except in passing. This is because, surprisingly enough, they are largely unimportant to the storyline. In game terms, it is at least moderately important to have a civilized group of enemies for the purposes of side quests and combat, but as far as the story goes, the Summit do only two things that are moderately important, and they could be replaced with other creatures for those situations. I refer of course to The Frost Gate and Thunderhead Keep. At The Frost Gate, the only story-significant event that happens is the death of Rurik. However, he simply needed to die at some point so that he could be present as an Undead later. Since he wouldn’t be important as a leader anymore in Kryta, this was the ideal time for him to perish. However, having Dagnar Stonesplitter kill him was not necessary. Someone or something else could have done much the same thing. For example, the equivalent quest for The Frost Gate could have been the defense of the convoy from Ettins or Centaurs and Rurik could have been killed by one of these groups or by an avalanche at the end of the mission. In either case, this would have made the presence of the Stone Summit awkward though having some reason for the Dwarves to not help the humans in their journey might have been a bit more difficult to create.
In Thunderhead Keep, the Summit are even more easily replaced. It is clear that the Mursaat are the Dwarves’ enemy, so the capture and siege of the fortress and city could have been carried out by Mantle and Mursaat rather than Summit. Again, in game terms it was likely easier to have the Chosen take Thunderhead from the Stone Summit along with King Ironhammer rather than Mursaat because Ironhammer was not infused, but regardless of that, in story terms the Stone Summit are unimportant.
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