Optional Emet-Selch dialogue

Level 74: Into the Dark

Emet-Selch: What is it now? Do you expect me to regale you with /friendly/ banter?
Emet-Selch: ... Oh, very well. I will humor you this once. You may consider it my latest act of good faith. Come on, then. What do you wish to know?

>> Choice 1: Why choose this form here in the first?
Emet-Selch: Well, well, what a curious question.
Emet-Selch: Mortal flesh is but the vessel into which we Ascians pour the elixir of our souls, molding it as fits the occasion. Or not, if we so choose.
Emet-Selch: Be it for a year or a millennium, I prefer to retain the same form until my duty is done. So, after arriving here in the First, I fashioned some hapless body into the man you see before you.
Emet-Selch: Though as your friend over there can attest, there are those of us who forgo such alterations.
Emet-Selch: He was ever the rash one, Lahabrea. Jumping from vessel to vessel. Never heeding the toll it took on him.

>> Choice 2: Actually... never mind.
Emet-Selch: If you've nothing to ask me, why are you still here? Don't you have Wardens to vanquish? A realm to save?




Level 75: The Burden of Knowledge

Emet-Selch: Lest you doubt, I /won't/ be helping you do battle with the Lightwarden. To accompany you thus is quite taxing enough.
Emet-Selch: Now, if you've no further questions...?

>> Choice 1: Are there any other Ascians here on the First?
Emet-Selch: Not a single one. Happily, I am quite content to mingle with the masses. And even if I did crave the company of my own kind, one might say we're understaffed at present.
Emet-Selch: There are no strict rules governing how we work, though that has not been without its consequences. In the beginning, we were each responsible for a shard, and free to do as we wished, but Igeyorhm's impetuous temperament showed us the folly in that.
Emet-Selch: In light of her failings, we took to working in tandem as the situation demanded.
Emet-Selch: Mitron and Loghrif were supposed to take care of the First, of course.
Emet-Selch: Alas, they were slain by the champions of this realm shortly before the Flood. Expendable though they were, I found them quite useful.
Emet-Selch: But that is a tale for another time.

>> Choice 2: Actually, I... don't.
Emet-Selch: Then run along back to your friends and leave me be!




Level 76: The Best Way Out

Emet-Selch: <sigh> Will you never grow tired of shuffling your feet?
Emet-Selch: If you have something to ask me, /ask/.

>> Choice 1: Tell me about Zodiark.
Emet-Selch: As I told you before--Zodiark is the creation of my people. The /first/ people.
Emet-Selch: We summoned Him, as your kind might summon a primal--albeit an infinitely more powerful one.
Emet-Selch: And like one of your primals, He tempered us. It was only natural. There is no resisting such power. And so we Ascians came to exist solely to bring about the rule of darkness. His darkness. Of course, some would call us "evil" for it... and they would be fools. Though that is only to be expected, given their innate ability to conceive of the nature of our universe.
Emet-Selch: ...But I believe I am repeating myself. Do you not trust me to speak honestly? Do you hope to catch me in a lie?
Emet-Selch: /Really/. I have no need of deception--and even if I did, I assure you: you would find it quite indistinguishable from the truth.

>> Choice 2: Nothing springs to mind.
Emet-Selch: Hmph. Perhaps I flatter myself expecting you to take an interest in the knowledge I possess. Or perhaps I flatter /you/.




Level 77: Return to Eulmore

Emet-Selch: Yes? Did my lesson provoke thought, giving rise to further questions?

>> Choice 1: Three of you escaped the sundering. But what of those who didn't...?
Emet-Selch: Why, their very beings were divided into fourteen, of course. Yet by our power, we unsundered Ascians may raise up one of their fragments to their original office.
Emet-Selch: Ah, but I suppose this in itself bears explaining. So... the names by which you know us are not, in fact, our names.
Emet-Selch: Be it Elidibus or Igeyorhm, all are titles of office. And when an office is vacated, it may be filled by another.
Emet-Selch: Over the eons, I have overseen several changings of the guard among our sundered brethren.
Emet-Selch: And in such instances, the vacant title ordinarily goes to another fragment of the selfsame soul.
Emet-Selch: While it is by no means impossible to raise up wholly unrelated individuals, 'tis we whose fervent entreaties brought forth Lord Zodiark--whose souls He claimed in the beginning--who make the truest servants.

>>>>>> Choice 1: So, if we were to defeat all the Ascians of the Source...
Emet-Selch: Then none would remain to raise up new Ascians, and our kind would eventually fade from existence. You would like that, wouldn't you? Well, feel free to dream--'tis no crime to do so.

>>>>>> Choice 2: What is your /true/ name, then?
Emet-Selch: Hm! There may come a day when I reveal my true name to you--but this is not it. Of course, you may well die none the wiser, but life is full of such disappointments.

>> Choice 2: I think we've talked enough.
If that is all, then run along. You have a Lightwarden to slay.