SPOILER What We Learned From A Grave Mistake (my Thoughts)

Quest Spoilers Ahead!!!

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Spoiler: Intro

So before I begin I would like to say I have not technically completed the quest. I have finished the ending cutscene, but the stupid dude refuses to give me my XP reward... ugh...

Anyway, many people do not understand A Grave Mistake. I want to explain to the best of my ability what I personally believe happened.

Spoiler: Who Is Mael?

Firstly, backstory. Some of you may not understand what's going on because you don't know who Mael is. He is one of the four twain brothers, and all his abilities involve communicating with spirits. While many who died in battle could not move on due to their violent nature, Mael was able to help these harmful spirits go to the next world.

Spoiler: Environment

Secondly, the environment. What appears to be a graveyard initially seems to be a small town (3 or 4 houses only) with a cathedral surrounded by graves and a crypt. Or it could be a graveyard and those houses belong to the gravekeepers. I am more for the first option, but it's never made clear.

The surrounding mountains are topped with black rock. Considering that's the area Dern is hypothesized to be, and the fact that other Dernic references involve black rock, I am going to put that down as solid for now.

Being behind the house of twain also poses interning questions. Why would the Twains have such a large graveyard if only they lived in the House of Twain?

Spoiler: Noteworthy Aspects

Anyway, given what we know about Mael, lets look at the scenes we come across (no, not the cutscenes, I will get to them later). A lot of people dead, but even more so, people who killed themselves. It is stated spirits can not move on because of the violent nature of their deaths OR practitioners of the Dark Arts can not move on due to the darkness in their spirit (once again, I am enforcing the spirit not soul rule).

Something happened and people started to kill themselves. This seems to be one of the worst ways you can die, and binds your vengeful spirit on earth. Mael, being in the business of helping spirits, was the only one who could help them move on.

Also, it seems to be the graveyard of a battle. What armies were fighting who, I don't know. But many of the graves state that the buried person was a great warrior, and I did see several graves with the same name.

Many of the mini-scenes show either people killing themselves or ghosts throwing books or footsteps. THe number of hanging people that just appear, I can not count.

Spoiler: Cutscenes

This leads us into the cutscenes. I am going to talk about them in the order I witnessed them, but there is really no order.

Firstly, the cathedral. We see a bunch of cultist people summoning an Eye Monster (I freaking swear... One more Eye reference...). Anyway, this does not seem to be related to The Eye, nor the beast being summoned. What is does seem to be about is the cultists. Remember how I said Dark Magic (as stated in the twain lore) binds the spirits to earth? Well, it seems here that people started using Dark Magic, which is one of the reasons Mael had so many spirits to deal with.

The second cutscene I did was The Attic. It showed a black spirit with red eyes come up to the player. What does this mean? Well, in the cathedral we see the same black figure with giant wings. In one of the houses we see it starting at the ground in the same room as a white spirit. I believe this black figure is some sort of over-arching dark spirit that is forcing people to kill them selves and what not. It has been haunting this town (or whatever), and Mael could not directly combat it, only clean up the mess it has been making. The question here was HOW the spirit came to be here.

The third cutscene I did was the skeleton tomb. This house in particular had a lot of ghostlike activity, from flying books to footsteps. The skeletons resurrecting is definitely a mark of necromancery, a dark magic, but other than that I can't really say anything for sure. Just seems like a repeat of the cathedral.

Lastly was the wither skull. It seemed that it was showing a normal skull coming back to life in spirit form. The skull was all old and rotted, but when it came alive, it looked like the Howling Spirits that are found around the Twain Area. I dont really know what else to say.

The text seen during the cutscenes was simple "Once there was a man, who helped spirits pass on, however he was still moral". The man is obviously Mael. The quote IMPLIES that Mael died (I will talk about that later), which is why that evil black spirit is still haunting the area.

Spoiler: Final Cutscene

The final cutscene is important. It shows a man, Mael, who lived in the mansion. Spirits wandered the graveyard/town and Mael fought them and sent them to the next life (as seen in the cathedral scene). BUT at some point, something happened. We see the spirits he was fighting overlooking his tomb. We then see the town/thing slowly fall to ruin without Mael's guidance.

Then we see his ghost.

• Mael: Do you understand now?
• Mael: Now leave, and forget the horrors you have witnessed here today...
• Mael: They are safer here.

What does this mean? SPECIFICLY, the last line. "They are safer here". I can not figure out who are safer. The spirits of the dead? Wouldn't Mael be worried about the world being safe from them, not them being safe from something?

More importantly, what are they being saved from?

Spoiler: Still Alive

The ending remark regards what happened to Mael. Firstly, this confirmed that the Phantom Twain in the House of Twain quest is Marius (which the only way you could know that was looking on the forums) because Mael's spirit is here.

But more importantly, we never see him die. That's because he did not.

Remember the Headless Hunt quest? We learn that bodies without their spirits are still capable of basic actions, such as knowing where their soul is, pointing, walking around, stuff like that. Mael never died. His spirit somehow was separated from his body.

But then where is his body? Well, thats the easy part. What's the name of the NPC outside of the graveyard. Alem. Rearrange the letters, will you? Alem = Mael. And to drive this home, they both have the exact same skin. Red/Gold outfit with big grey mustache, just as we see in the cutscenes. And the mustache is also clearly on Mael's spirit.

Mael is not dead. I just wish we could find a way to return his spirit to his body.

So yeah. Thats all my thoughts and findings from the quest. Tell me if I missed anything or if you disagree!

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Edit: Yes! Tanti-like!

 

#walloftext

 

Kewl im spooped

 

Eddited. Is that better?

 

Yes master!

 

Someone's been putting more effort into their theories lately *thumbs up*

 

Great theory boi

I have come to the conclusion that "They are safer here" means that the spirits are safer in the graveyard behind the mansion.

You know how that 4/4 dialogue thingy text says that there was a man who helped the spirits pass on? That's obviously Mael as you said, but I don't think that he fought against the spirits. He helped them go on to the next part of their life. What I think is that when Mael died, no one could help the spirits, so the town got overflown with spirits and ghosts and whatnot. Everyone abandoned the town/graveyard and all that is left is the spirits. They can't go anywhere because Mael is not able to help them.

 

MAEL IS THE GUY WHO TAUGHT BOB THE WAYS OF THE ARCHER AND HE CREATED THE BOW MAELSTROM

Why do I know this

 

Don't worry, you aren't the only one that knows this... (ink how I know either)

 

I wonder why this doesn't mention that fact that the graveyard caretaker Alem is Mael rearragned.

 

Cause of Grian

Also, in a official Grian lore thread he explicitly stated that Mael and the three other brothers died battling the corrupt armies in front of the nether gate. Therefore, according to Grian lore, mael is for all intents and purposes, dead

 

It does. Please re-read the "still alive" section.

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Mael is a key figure in the Twain lore and a secondary figure in the Bob lore. This, however, only has to do with the former and not the later. Also, the bow is named after him, but he did not nessesairly make it.

You probably know this fact because I mentioned it several times in my theories regarding Bob.

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Lore changes. The lore Grian originally created changed in the 1.14 update when it was actually put into the game. We only count the most recent iteration as canon.

In the most recent version I believe Mael fled the battle or something, but he did not die at the portal.

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I think its a mix.

Some spirits who wanted to move on but could not, he helped.

But the violent spirits that wanted vengeance on the world of the living, he had to fight to let them move on.

Also you say hes dead, I really dont think thats the case.

 

The more you know

 

In conclusion: this quest made me spoop my pants.

 

I actually screeched like a pterodactyl and started sobbing by the jumpscare in the attic.

 

The only time I jumped was when I broke a pot and it dinged, every other time it was just psychological.

 

Oh and also, I bugged in the attic and had to re-live the jumpscare over and over again.

 

There is a connection between Mael and Alem. yes Alem is the body of Mael, but Mael has some amount of control over Alem.

in the first encounter with Alem he says

• Alem: You might want to leave.
• Alem: There is nothing in this graveyard.
• Alem: This place is private.

Alem is seeming to be possessed by Mael. Putting messages in the words he speaks.

Yes i know he can do "basic things" but speaking in complete sentences with a obvious purpose to them? Mael must be controlling him.

 

Honestly the only part that really scared me was that weird spinning head that flies toward you jumpscare, mainly because it caught me off guard. Even then, I was just like, 'Oh. That happened.'. The quest wasn't really that scary at all:
The rotten skull jumpscare was pretty predictable and not really that scary
The eyeball monster-chan 'jumpscare' was hardly scary because you could already see it.
The attic jumpscare wasn't scary at all, since it was just a chestplate and a head with red eyes that walks toward you.
The skeleton tomb jumpscare was literally as scary as a skeleton spawning and walking toward you, because that's all it was.
A creeper jumping down from a cave above you underground did a better job scaring me that this quest, and that was mainly a fear of me dropping my diamonds from death than the creeper itself.

 

In my case, a jumpscare doesn't necessarily be scary for me to jump. I jump because it makes me so shocked. I once jumped 5 meters because I turned around and saw a chair that I didn't know was there.

I agree, the quest isn't that scary, it gives the vibe of scariness and it's creepy. But every time I entered a new house I was expecting a jumpscare, therefore explaining my fear of this quest. (Also why I'm scared of every single fucking horror movie out there)