Since we have a date for Episode 5, January 8th for anyone who missed it, I figured it was a good time to look back and recap where things left off in A Star to Guide Us. With the couple of month gaps between each episode I have found I often forget a lot of what happens during the episode. Additionally the trailer gave us a bit of a glimpse into All or Nothing and I have some ideas about where the story will be going from here. Of course, since there is a lot of recap, there will be spoilers if you haven’t played A Star to Guide us yet.
A Star to Guide us picked up with everyone trying to figure out what to do now Joko is, presumably, dead. Yea, I know Aurene ate him but still… I won’t discount the possibility of something ridiculous happening. The summit of course goes to heck but this time around I was most interest in the Free Awakened and what role they might fill moving forward. They of course are a new group on the scene and we don’t really know much about them other than they are still undead but now have their own freewill. I can’t help but wonder if they’ll have a big role to play in beating Kralkatorrik. Maybe because they are undead the branding won’t affect them? I didn’t see any of them get branding during the instance, just crushed by Shatterer paw so it seems like a possibility.
Shortly after the attack on the summit we discover the fabric of reality is slowly crumbling around us. Eir and Snaff arrive through one of the rifts to deliver the news Kralkatorrik also is the cause for these issues. Thus, causing Kralkatorrik to move up from a threat out there somewhere, to an immediate issue. One thing I’m curious about though is how he figured out to get into and out of the mists. As far as we know no Elder Dragon has been able to do this before, so he had to pick it up from somewhere. With the Mists being a huge and untapped source of magic it’s also safe to assume any Elder Dragon would have done it previously if they could.
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Snaff also delivered the means, though he isn’t specific on how, to bypass the whole “if we kill another Elder Dragon Tyria will be destroyed” thing. Aurene must take Kralkatorric’s place. This is something a lot of us have speculated on for a while, but it was confirmed as the game plan by Snaff. However, since no one has ever really explained the difference between an Elder Dragon and a regular dragon how this is supposed to happen is sort of unclear. Aurene herself might have given us a bit of an answer to this issue though.
During the Path of Fire storyline Aurene absorbed some of Balthazar’s power, which then kicked off a growth spurt and an apparent attitude change. This seems to indicate dragon size is related, at least in some way, to how much magic they have devoured. We also know when an Elder Dragon dies, they release a wave of magic out into the world which can be absorbed by the other Elder Dragons. So logically when we kill him, she should be able to absorb the power from him and assuming she can handle it all would just grow and become an Elder Dragon herself. What I’m concerned about though is these increases in power also seemed to have changed her demeanor a bit.
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Before absorbing some of Balthazaar’s power I would have never considered the possibility of Aurene eating a vanquished foe on the battlefield. It just would have seemed like a weird thing for her to do. However, after that moment she became harder to control and more brash in her choices. Not only did she kill Joko and eat him, but she also got angry when we tried to stop her. Which I could be wrong, but I don’t think there has been another moment where she’s shown anything close to anger towards the Commander. This causes me concern if her demeanor changes significantly after she absorbs Kralkatorric’s power as well. So far, she still seems good, but impatient. And scared. Which are all understandable ways for her to feel but her emotions seem to be more extreme and harder for her to control than they were before. Who knows how her perspective might change once she becomes an Elder Dragon.
This all assumes we will figure out a way to kill Kralkatorrik because at the end of Episode 4 we still had no idea. Aurene’s premonition made it seem like it could be nearly impossible to do so. There were many variations on ways to attack Kralkatorrik and in all of them we failed. Although Blish did figure out a way for us to track Kralkatorrik’s location, we ended the episode with no idea how to fight and win against him. Destiny’s Edge came close, but the spear has been destroyed and we’ve had no real clues about what we can do instead. Plus, he’s absorbed magic from two other Elder Dragons and Balthazar as well since then. He’s significantly stronger than he was previously. At this point he seems more like a face in a huge storm than an actual being we can attack. I mean, does he even have legs anymore?
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As such I must assume most of All or Nothing will be about figuring out how to fight him. Also, consider the title. It’s probably safe to assume whatever plan we come up with will be extreme and we’ll either succeed or doom the world. The stakes at this point are literally everything. We are all in and can’t turn back. As such I believe we’ll end with and exciting rallying of the troops rather than starting off with it. Smushing figuring out how to kill him and fighting him into one episode would probably be way too rushed so I don’t expect both to happen here. Plus, I’m guessing we have one more episode after this.
So far, this entire season of story has been interesting and I’m curious to see where things go from here. It’s not often I find myself in a position of not being able to guess how we will do something, but when it comes to killing Kralkatorrik I am at a complete loss. And that’s exciting. One more week to go until we head off to Thunderhead Keep!
