Reaction/Discussion Skien's Island, And Skien's Descent. ( Almost All The Info Found! )

I spent a just spent a while exploring Skien's Island, and returned from the depth of insanity. (No joke that song drove me insane after the first 50 minutes.)
(That took me from around 1-2:30am last night. It was worth it though.)

So, to prevent this thread from appearing a mile long, I'm going to leave everything in the following spoiler.
WARNING: LOTS OF TEXT AHEAD.

Edit: I can't save drafts while editing a post to prevent work loss, so I guess the info is coming in waves.

Spoiler: Skien's Island and Skien's Descent

(Note: Screenshots will be placed in the order that I took them)

So I first arrive on the new Skien's Island. I see the giant castle, a new ravine, and new mobs. I start to make my way up towards the castle to explore, but end up falling through a hole in a bridge, down into the ravine. I figure I might as well look around while I'm down here, and find a Prison down there. In many of the Cells there were signs depicting what happened from the Prisoners' POV. (Check the spoiler below to see them.) Also found in the Prison was Mooington, who has a door that can only be opened by defeating the Prison Warden and tossing the key into a hopper.

Spoiler: Skien's Prison

(I'll write what the signs say under each picture, because there are a few "Don't Dead Open Inside" moments.)


"He's Immortal... No one can kill that damn Skien! It's impossible... He had to have killed a hundred men or more in their rebellion! And now there are new guards, that aren't giving us any food! Those idiots have doomed the rest of us to starve! I'm so hungry!!!"


"They threw a beast in here!! They want me to die! But I was too tough for them! I killed the beast and ate it's flesh!! I live another day!"


"One of the guards slipped a file through the bars. Seems they think Skien is crazy, too. I'll escape with the others soon...we did nothing to deserve this. Skien needs to pay for his actions. We'll kill him before we leave."

And finally:


"My cellmate died today. He started eating himself out of hunger... He bled out on the floor, then he apologized for his mess. After that he kept muttering "Three is the last" before death... I don't know what he meant by it, but it's obvious I'll never escape. I'm just going to end it tonight and just to get it over with..."

And we'll come back to this screenshot later.

After making my way back up the ravine, I finally make it to the Castle, and it might as well be a multi-floored maze. Doors leading to nowhere, hidden passages, etc. Check the following spoiler for signs found strewn throughout the castle.

Spoiler: Skien's Castle

(Same deal as the prison screenshots, will write what the signs say underneath each picture.)


"Does anyone even know that this part of the keep exists?! This place is impossible to navigate. I don't know where anything is. I don't know what any room does. This is just a madhouse built by a madman, but it may as well be a madhouse built by many madmen, each with an intense, burning hatred for the last madman's unique flavour of madness...coming from the mind of one person!!"


"He killed our war dogs. Said they were going to betray us. I'm going to sail away with the others soon. I can't take one more day of this treatment. No one should go through all this."


"He stopped chasing me, but he definitely saw me jump in here... I think he knows there isn't food in here. He just needs to let me starve myself out...but there's a weak window in here. Near ocean. I think I can make the jump. I just need to bide my time..."


"I thought Skien was supposed to be a military genius. Yet, he seems to have forgotten this prowess, in favor of making such odd orders as what led to these two towers being right next to each other, but not connected... We had to blast a hole in the wall."


"I never knew Skien was so hard on magic. I mean, he stripped me of my rank for doing a card trick! What, does he think I'm in league with those ugly villagers because I hid some paper up my sleeve?"

These are not all the signs that I found...

Now we're nearing the end, atop the Castle, I found this, along with a Tier III Chest:

"We've decided. Skien needs to die. Everyone has been put through too much to stand anymore. Some of us plan to sail away in the night. Most of the guard is with us, so that should work fine. Killing Skien will be much tougher though. He's fought off many hoards of the corrupted while he was in the Tromsian Army, so he won't go down easy in a fight. But then, we'd need to get to him first. He keeps hiding away in the dungeons of the basement, and he's put a code-lock. We've only heard bits and pieces of it. We've found the first number is five, for sure, and we also heard that there is an Eight in the code, but not where it is. We'll keep spying."

And elsewhere inside the castle, this is found:

"Skien // talkin/ to him//lf agai// He k//ps /ay// "//, Two, // // It's probably the code to that lock he had us make...my only question is what he's saying it for. Is he planning something?"

And if you read the previous spoilers, this should look familiar:

"My cellmate died today. He started eating himself out of hunger... He bled out on the floor, then he apologized for his mess. After that he kept muttering "Three is the last" before death... I don't know what he meant by it, but it's obvious I'll never escape. I'm just going to end it tonight and just to get it over with..."

Now me being tired last night, didn't realize I had already found the last digit for the basement lock, so I decided to just take the time and try codes one by one, because I couldn't find anymore signs. I started with 5281 up to 5283. Thankfully that took me five minutes. The code to the basement is 5283.

Spoiler: Skien's Dungeon

(Note, this is not actually a dungeon, I just figured the word fit well to describe the basement.)

Upon entering the code, the floor will drop out from under you and you'll be put into a fresh new multi-floor maze. (yay...) I explored for a bit and only found two rooms with signs in them, seemingly written by Skien himself:

"hes returned the traitor. the first one hes back i gave up trying to understand why theres no point he keeps taunting me says i couldve stopped this says its all my fault well he WRONG ITS ALL HIS FAULT EVERYTHING IS HIS FAULT everything because of him because of him i lost the siege because of him i lost my men because of him i lost my home because of him im losing my mind I cant kill him it phases through im out of food WHAT DO I DO"

Above we see Skien descending into madness, and here we have a seemingly more coherent message written by dear ol' Skien:

"I have utterly and completely failed. This island is no longer a stronghold against the corruption. It is a prison. The traitors, the trusted, all dead and turned to the corruption! I know not how long I will survive. They are somehow stronger now than they were in life. I know now for certain that the Villagers are the enemy. A frigate passed. I signaled for them to land. They took one look at me, didn't even bother to listen to what I had to say. They left me here. And, that awful dread persists."

Before we continue further, I would like to mention that some of this dialogue from Skien seems to tie in with another easter egg I found last night in a boss altar:

In the Prison of Souls boss altar, (which more info can be found about here), there is a singular cell, belonging to someone named "Sotqin". In his cell you can find this message on the wall:

"Not even death can hold me here. I will escape from the beast... I wonder how poor old Skien is doing, on his little island. Why, it just would be rude not to pop in, say hello to an old friend..."

It would appear the traitor Skien's talking about may very well be Sotqin!

Now for the final details:

Spoiler: Skien

After miraculously finding your way through the new multi-floored maze in the basement, I came across the region teleporter, (the bunch of coal blocks that indicate you'll get teleported if you step on them), I step in and end up here:


However, that's not the only thing, in this room, you must fight:


That's right. You fight Tromsian Army General Skien himself. Along with him in the room appears to be the ghost of the traitor or something, I didn't get a good look at most of the nametags. (Am I allowed to tag @Selvut283 for the stats/names of the mobs in this room?)

After either chickening out and skipping the fight with Skien or killing him and exiting the room, you're now in a new hallway. along the wall of the hallway, a small room can be found, another note from Skien, along with a gift (Tier IV Chest):

"I am confused... I thought I had starved to death. I remember the pain...I remember the traitor being above me, smiling... And everything was black, for a long time...yet, I am awake and I am moving...in full control of my senses. Was I risen by the corruption? If so I should be mindless...but my soldiers do not attack me, and they have turned. It is so strange, being alive again. I have a feeling this stats of coherence will not last long...so while I am still in control...all that come near me will die. I shall make an attempt to fend off my soldiers. I refuse to truly fall...so even if my efforts are futile, I will keep fighting, in the name of Troms..."

And this was the last bit of signs I found. The hallway leads out back into one of the prison cells via secret door. I recieved the following item from defeating Skien:
(I have a feeling these items work in similar to the way bosses from boss altars drop items, random chance for 1 of however many items, I'll go back and test soon, don't worry.)

Spoiler: Skien's Armour

Spoiler: Edit 2: Things found via a revisit to Skien's Island (Read main thread first)

(There was also a T3 chest in this room.)

Upon farming of Skien himself, he only seems to drop the item "Skien's Fatigues". This would seem normal except for one thing: No other mobs drop items from the Skien's Set. I would know considering I went from level 48 0% -> level 49 18% just from defeating the mobs that kept getting in my way while exploring the castle. @Selvut283 is this a bug? Or did I miss some other mobs on the island that are supposed to drop the rest of the set?

 

My my...Skien's Island is gonna give us some very interesting backstories.

 

What about Baab and cluckles? Why does mooington get a friggin castle, and not the others? #allmobsarecreatedequal

 

Has anybody actually confirmed that Baab's arena didn't get a revamp?

 

From what we know from item Lore, Skien was a general, in charge of a large army. However, one night, one of his soldiers was either corrupted or went mad, and killed the other soldiers, causing Skien to flee and go crazy.

 

Could be a general, could be a king.

 

Not quite. Not from what I read at least...

Update to thread inbound check back in about 15-30 mins. It's gonna take a while to update all this info.

 

Additionally an NPC in Selchar now confirms that it's the only known case of an island being corrupted.

 

I cannot save drafts while editing threads, so info is coming in waves to prevent work loss.

Wave 1 is posted.

________________________________

Bump, wave 2 of info is out!

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Bump! Wave 3 of info is posted! Final wave of info is being added now.

 

Final wave of info is now posted! Sorry for the delay, lots and lots of writing for that one.

 

So this explains @Selvut283's quote of "Ready your sickles, men. There will be no survivors."

 

it's like a boss altar without the altar

 

Yeah pretty much. But still amazing nonetheless.

 

Bump! A revisit to Skien's was made, found some new things.

 

So how did you like it...? Designed it myself...



You missed a few signs in the prison. Look on the sides of the cells instead of just straight back.

There are also many more notes scattered around the keep than you showed.



There are a total of seven notes from Skien in the basement, including the one found after fighting Skien.

You have found notes 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7, though not necessarily in that order. I assume it will be relatively easy to order them up. Just one left to find. It's on the top level.

Now, about the set...



Did you really not find any?

The leggings and boots drop from the mobs around the island, while the fatigues drop exclusively from Skien. Only certain mobs drop certain pieces of the set, though with such a massive congregation of enemies on the island you should be able to find then relatively quickly.

Stats for the enemies, for now, are meaningless...but something to note about Skien.



You may not have noticed, but he is actually Berserk. You can lead him to attack his minions around the arena, including the Traitor Ghost. In addition, this Ghost also inflicts water, air, and thunder damage, all the elements that Skien is weak to, constantly follows the other mobs in that arena, and wields a dagger. Where have we seen that before...



It all comes together now, doesn't it...

 

I noticed the ghost was holding Locrian, don't worry, (I also noticed him attacking the other mobs too), and yes I found no other drops from the mobs on the island, and I farmed a considerable amount of them. Enough to go from 48 0% to 49 18%ish.

Edit: Whoops forgot to answer your first question, sorry. I liked it very much! It was extremely well done.

 

@Syndicate_ l'histoire est pas mal tu devrais la lire

 

This is 2spoopy4me. But seriously, the way that all the lore scattered throughout the province, as well as on weapons, comes together here is giving me chills.

 

May I ask which mobs specifically are supposed to drop the Skien's set items from this list? So when I get back later today I can farm those mobs specifically and see if it's indeed broken or not. Sorry if I'm missing some, or if some are typed incorrectly, I'm currently doing this off memory as I'm out right now.

Skien's Bomber
Skien's Archer
Skien's Footsoldier
Skien's Elite
Skien's Warden
Skien's Marksman
Skien's Jailkeeper(?)
Skien's Commander

I think there's one other I'm missing but I'm not sure.

 

Skien's Scout/Footsoldier: Skien Leggings
Skien's Bowman: Skien Boots
Skien's Elite: Both
Skien's Commander: Both
Skien's Ravager: Skien Leggings
Skien's Vanguard: Skien Leggings
Skien's Marksman: Skien Boots
Skien's Jailkeeper: Skien Boots
Skien's Warden: Skien Leggings
Skien's Bomber: Both
General Skien: Skien's Fatigues