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A Traitor's Grave

CROW'S BRIDGE
Map

THE LEGION HEADS SOUTH; SHIVER REACHES MADRIGAL.

  Wednesday August 3, Crow's Bridge

Yesterday our legion entered the village of Crow's Bridge and halted there for the night. We are just four days march from the besieged city of Madrigal now, and with a little luck should arrive there in time to prevent its capture by the enemy.

Shiver, one of the Fallen Lords, has been attacking the city for two days, but so far has been held back by its defenders. We all know the battle for Madrigal will decide the fate of all the Northern lands, and that if it falls we will soon have nowhere to retreat but the ocean.

Fearing for their safety, the villagers here pleaded with us to remain when we broke camp this morning. None of them understand yet what is happening, but they have all seen the refugees from the south, and they are frightened.

Our officers seemed unsympathetic until the people returned with nine young pigs and ten dozen loaves of bread. Fifteen of us are to stay now, perhaps to fight boredom instead of the Fallen Lords, and watch the bridge here for two days.

 

Go to the Field Guide Entry documenting this level's easter eggs and points of interest with pictures.

Mission Objective: Guard Crow's Bridge.

Notable Quote: "What's going to happen to my pumpkins?"

Notes: August 3rd was a Sunday if most of the other dates in the Journal are accurate.

We have some pregame illustrations of this level that were removed from the game somewhere between the early betas and the release. It appears that originally Bungie planned to tell the plot more through pictures then through the narration. We will never know the true reasons that explain why these scenes were cut but we can still try to decipher them.

Beta Pic
This picture illustrates what the narrator says in the journal.

"Fearing for their safety, the villagers here pleaded with us to remain when we broke camp this morning. None of them understand yet what is happening, but they have all seen the refugees from the south, and they are frightened."

Is that fir'bolg praying for the villagers safety?

Beta Pic
As above, this is just an illustration of the narration.

"Our officers seemed unsympathetic until the people returned with nine young pigs and ten dozen loaves of bread. Fifteen of us are to stay now, perhaps to fight boredom instead of the Fallen Lords, and watch the bridge here for two days."

These particular pictures would have given even more life to the story had they been kept in the game because they let us "see" the panicked villagers and how desperate they were, however the pics don't offer us very much new insight that is critical to the plot.

If you win this level you see the victorious soldiers who defended Crow's Bridge as they are hailed in the town as saviors. There was the tough Dwarf Bokk, who saved their hides against the Thrall, ml'Cas and his Archer buds took out the Soulless, and Beryl, the Warrior lieutenant with his sidekick... Melvin?

Victory Screen

    Now why does Melvin look so surprised?

When you lose you see the town you just failed to defend burning up in flames. You can make out some buildings caught in the raging fire and the grassy fields around the outskirts of the town. If you look closer you can even make out the river running just north of the town and the walls in the south...

Loss Screen

    Ya, those walls are clearly there alright. Perhaps this isn't the last few hours of the quiet town of Crows Bridge after all, which had no walls in the level itself. Also, is that a lake flowing up to the NW corner of the walls.

    Where could this be?

Before this level starts there is a cutscene that we can draw some information from. Here are the different scenes shown in the movie.
Scene 1
This first part looks like something out of the Lion King. Hakuna Matata (?).
Scene 2
Here we see the bridge where the dark forces attack the city from once the level starts.
Scene 3
These soldiers gossip about the fate of a place called Avon's Grove, which strangely enough is the name of this particular level when you hex-edit deep into the bowels of the tags.gor file.
Scene 4
Two problems here. 1) those are supposed to be thrall under the river, but they look NOTHING like thrall. Well, except for the crossed things holding their armor on. Could it just be a bad play of light and shadow? Either way, they could have been clearer, but good enough. 2) this river is about 8 feet wide, yet it is 20 feet deep, isn't that odd?

Our explanation of this cutscene, can be determined from an article on Bahl'al which is reprinted below in part for your convinience.

"The only mention of Bahl'al in the entire plot line lies in the Thrall's title bar where he searches the ruined palaces of the Trow for the dream of unlife. Also, Bungie's Myth page referred to Thrall as The Children of Bahl'al. That known, we can assume that Bahl'al did find the dream of unlife. Perhaps he didn't find it in the Trow's ruined temples or maybe he did, but that doesn't matter as far as we know now. All that matters right now is that he did find the dream of unlife and that can be seen by each Thrall that moseies along as each one used to be a soldier for the light.

How do we know this? Well, think back to the very beginning of the game in the cutscene for Crow's Bridge.

"Hear what happened at Avon's Grove?"
"Yeah, there were no bodies."

Those bodies had the dream of unlife cast upon them so they were all now Thrall. This may seem rather stupid to you, but it all has meaning. There is a whole region of the map we never encounter. The campaigns in and surrounding Avon's Grove, The Ermine, Tandem, and Willow are nonexistent as far as the journal writer is concerned as he never comments of anything in these areas. Because the bodies were resurrected in Avon's Grove, the dream of unlife had to have been used there which would mean that Bahl'al was at Avon's Grove. There is a possibility that once Bahl'al discovered the dream that he shared it with the other fallen.

But, why then did Soulblighter never use the dream when we met him on two seperate occasions? BonusThrall™ would have came in handy to resurrect the dead to prevent the head from being tossed into The Great Devoid. Furthurmore, Balor never even used this dream. This leads me to believe that only Bahl'al possesed this ability and since the bodies were resurrected at Avon's Grove, Bahl'al must have been there.

So, what does this all mean? I'm willing to speculate that in the Berserk's history bar, the reference to the souless at The Stair of Grief was a battle against Bahl'al. Also, that Bahl'al was the one who finally sacked Madrigal and took the West while the Legion was campaigning in the East."


This is further supported by the fact that The Watcher is likely Bahl'al. In pre-release info from Eidios (Bungie's European publisher), the names of the six Fallen Lords are Bahl'al, Bonesplitter, Soulblighter, The Deceiver, The Faceless Man, and The Voiceless one. Three of the Fallen are "ancient evils"; Bahl'al, The Faceless Man, and The Voiceless One. We know The Watcher is an ancient evil, so he is one of these. Now, we know that Bahl'al got the Dream of Unlife. Shades are undead. Soulless are likely undead (they can certainly be unhealed). Thrall were created at Avon's Grove, so Bahl'al was probably there. Who was near Avon's Grove at the time? The Watcher and Shiver. The Watcher is approaching from the north, so he is likely the one there. He also must have passed through the Stair of Grief, where Egil's battle with the Soulless took place. He also has most of the Shades. So, The Watcher is Bahl'al, and the forces you're fighting at Crow's Bridge are probably his.

Myth TFL:
Prologue
Index Myth TFL:
A Traitor's Grave


Written and compiled by the Myth Nontoxic crew.



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