The Footsteps of the Fremen
| The Footsteps of the Fremen | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Journey |
| Journey Arc | Find the Fremen |
| Prerequisites | TODO |
| Rewards | 450  |
| Added in Version | 1.1.0.0 |
The last trial altar had a map, but this map one differs in its detail. It depicts a place at the border of Mysa Tarill in the west and Jabal Eifrit Al-gharb. I will find the source and see to the end of these trials.
Objectives
A Final Test
- Survey the Easter Shield Wall to locate the next trial
- Find the cave
- Explore the sietch with Ari
- Complete the Ecology lesson
- Continue exploring the abandoned sietch
- Realign the mechanism and activate the ancient deathstill
- Enter the secret chamber
- Find the safe mentioned in the projection
- Find a way out of the secret chamber
- Survive the Assault
- Find your way out
Location
Dialogue
Approach the lock mechanism
Ornate door: The carvings in the door depict a series of planets. A solido projection of handprint flickers in front of the door.
Player:
1. Place your hand on the projection.
2. Leave.
(1) Ornate door: The whirr of machinery begins from the walls around the door.
Player: 1.1 [Next]
(1.1) Ornate door: We are the people of Misr. We have known flight and death. the young go that our people shall not die. Where did our flight begin?
Player:
3. Bela Tegeuse
4. Nilotic al-Ourouba
5. Rossak
(3) Ornate door: You have failed to proving, young wali. Return to your sietch and tell your Naib of your shame!
Player:
2. Leave.
(4) Ornate door: We grew soft, wali. So God brought us the weight of kindliness to prepare for the typhoon. Name the planet where we lost our way.
Player:
6. Salusa Secundus
7. Poritrin
8. Thurgrod
(7) Ornate door: On our wanderings, we came to a planet devoid of gods, where war was constant and violence was religion. Have you learned its name, wali?
Player:
9. Salusa Secundus
10. Harmontep
11. Bela Tegeuse
(9) Ornate door: We remember the slave cribs where we were held. Weeded out. Persecuted. Do you remember, wali?
Player:
12. Harmontep
13. Rossak
14. Bela Tegeuse
(14) Ornate door: The thread of the past was carried by word - until we found the poison drug. One of the cursed planets was a blessing for our Sayyadina.
Player:
15. Rossak
16. Harmontep
17. Thurgrod
(15) Ornate door: So many planets, across so many centuries. Our people broke apart, split, reformed. Some planets we barely remember at all.
Player:
18. Harmontep
19. Arrakis
20. Thurgrod
(20) Ornate door: A long journey, young wali. But we are almost home. Just one last place of suffering, where our children were taken and made slaves.
Player:
21. Rossak
22. Old Earth
23. Harmontep
(23) Ornate door: The time of Mihna has ended. Young wali, pass within and seek your umma.
Player: Travel to Sietch Ta'lab. I am humbled.
After entering the hallway
Masked stranger: The path of the Zensunni exodus is rare and hidden knowledge.
Stranger: You are no Mass Kharet cultist. Who are you? What do you seek here?
Player: <only one option is available depending on the player traits>
1. [POLITICAL] You have me at a disadvantage. Let's trade names first, then motivations.
2. [TECHNOLOGIST] I'm interested in Fremen technology. Primitive, yes, but extraordinary robust.
3. [HONORABLE] The Trials of Aql brought me here in search of the Fremen.
(1) Stranger: I think not. Since, as you so eloquently put it, I have you at a disadvantage. Tell me why you're here.
Player:
1.1 I'm looking for the Fremen.
(2) Stranger: The Fremen are long gone, their sietches abandoned. Only their ghosts remain to haunt these halls.
Player:
2.1 Tech endures flesh does not. I'm searching for the Fremen - their technology may have clues.
(3) Stranger: The Trials of Aql? Knowledge of that name lends your credibility. But... you seek the Fremen? You must know they are dead?
Player:
3.1 I'm seen them in my spice-fueled dreams. I've seen enough to doubt that they are really dead.
(1.1)(2.1)(3.1) Stranger: That security door is encoded for Fremen biometrics. How did you bypass it?
Player:
4. It just opened - I don't know how.
5. I guess they are expecting me.
6. You followed me here. You tell me.
(4)(6) Stranger: Perhaps we can help each other.
Player: 4.1 Why? What do you want out of this place? 4.2 The door opened for me. You're the trespasser here. Why do I need you again?
(4.1) Stranger: I'm a scholar of Fremen's social, cultural, and philosophical constructs both past and present. They... fascinate me.
Player: 4.3 [Next]
(4.3) Stranger: And I've studied the layout of this place - It's a deathtrap.
Player: 4.4 [Next]
(4.4) Stranger: Between the Mass Kharet trying to blow their way in and the structural damage left by the Sardaukar, the whole thing could come crashing down.
Player:
7. The moment demands cooperation. I have your back.
8. You go first.
9. Just stay out of my way.
(7) Stranger: Then I have yours. The name is Ari.
Player: 7.1 Who do you work for, Ari? 7.2 Who's coming after me if this all goes wrong, Ari? 7.3 Who sent you? This seems a little coincidental.
(7.1) Stranger: I serve no one. Let's say I'm something of a free booting academic.
Player: 7.4 [Next]
(7.4) Stranger: And like you, my interests lie in discovering the true extent of the Fremen eradication.
Player: 7.5 [Next]
(7.5) Stranger: Or more to the point, discovering if that eradication even occurred.
Player:
10. If they're not dead where are they?
11. And where do your 'freebooter academic' senses figure they're at?
12. You're the great Fremen expert, where are they?
(11) Stranger: South, maybe. Arrakis is a big place.
Player: 11.1 [Next]
(11.1) Stranger: And while we like to think we're at the center of all things, in relative terms, the sphere of Imperial influence is rather small.
Player: 11.2 [Next]
(11.2) Stranger: They could be anywhere beyond the deep desert or the Tanzerouft, as it's known to the Ichwan Bedwine.
Player: 13. Do you dispute the Imperial account? 14. Shaddam says they're dead? Do you say different? 15. so the Emperor is a liar?
(13) Stranger: Not entirely - I'm sure the Sardaukar massacred them by the thousands. The siege bears evidence of that.
Player: 13.1 [Next]
(13.1) Stranger: But you're right, I don't believe the Imperial account. And I'm hoping the truth, or part of it, awaits us inside.
Player: 13.2 [Next]
(13.2) Stranger: If we survive.
Player: Goodbye.
Explore the sietch with Ari
Examine Ari: It serves the emperor to depict the Fremen as barbarous and savage, but look at their craft.
Ari: I see the work of a socially and materially advanced people.
Ari: A people with the innate practicality and good sense to worship a local and very available God.
Ari: That's also conveniently an apex megapredator.
Ari: Did you encounter the Maas Kharet on your way here?
Ari: They're some kind of cult. Worm worshippers based out of an abandoned power station far to the west.
Ari: It's odd to see them this far east, but if they found this place... they'll be coming.
Examine
Ari: Down here, water discipline would finally be relaxed.
Ari: Visitors could shed their dusty still suits and find refreshment.
Reach boulder
Ari: Looks like there's no other way forward.
I hope you brought your cutteray.
Examine
Ari: We'll probably find that a lot of corridors and sub-chambers are collapsed and impassible.
Some would have been brought down by the Sardaukar to deny key areas and resources to any survivors.
Ari: Others would have been brought down by the Fremen themselves, to crush the invading assault force or channel them to a kill-zone.
Complete the Ecology lesson
Solido projection: Our first goal on Arrakis is grassland provinces.
Solido projection: We will start with these mutated poverty grasses.
Solido projection: When we have moisture locked in grasslands, we'll move on to start upland forests. Then a few open bodies of water.
Solido projection: Small at first, and situated along lines of prevailing winds with windtrap moisture precipitators spaced in the lines to recapture what the wind steals.
Solido projection: We must create a true sirocco. A moist wind. But we will never get away from the necessity for windtraps.
Solido projection: This ecological transformation of Arrakis relies upon us controlling three percent of the energy surface, only three percent, to start a self-sustaining system.
Solido projection: Learn this lesson well, our transformation begins in the plantations of the south and proceeds in simple steps to begin.
Solido projection: To begin, bind the dunes using grass.
Solido projection: Secondly, create deep plantings in the shelter of the downwind face.
Solido projection: Finally, introduce borrowing animals to aerate the soil.
Solido projection: You will be tested on how well you have learned to recognize the language of the ecological transformation.
Solido projection: Remember your lessons and the door to the future will open.
Continue exploring the abandoned sietch
Ari: Congratulations, you share the knowledge of a Fremen preadolescent.
Ari: Good work. This must be the way.
Ari: That's the Mass Kharet! I was hoping it would take them longer to arrive in force.
Ari: We'd better hurry up and be done with our business here.
Examine
Ari: This must be the Cavern of Council, the cultural and political heart of any sietch community.
Ari: It's here that siege dwellers would gather to hear a traveling crier regale the community with news from beyond.
Ari: And up there, upon that great terrace extending over the room, is the reason we're here today.
Realign the mechanism and activate the ancient deathstill
Ari: A Deathstill.
Ari: The place all Fremen end up at death, so they may return their water to the tribe.
Ari: That script upon the platform reads, "The water of the tribe shall reveal the path."
Ari: And I believe "the Path" in question is related to the secret that's brought us both here.
Ari: And while you are clearly no Fremen, you were able to pass their biometric locks without tampering or delay.
Ari: Whatever lies beyond here, I believe your blood is the key.
Pour blood on the deathstill
Enter the secret chamber
Mysterious figure: Greetings and subakh ul kuhar.
Mysterious figure: If you are watching this, I am likely dead or captured.
Mysterious figure: I came to Sietch Ta'lab in the same condition you find it now - abandoned and despoiled.
Mysterious figure: I must have triggered some kind of hidden alarm because the Sardaukar were at my heels before long.
Mysterious figure: They've found me, I haven't long. So listen well.
Mysterious figure: I was brought to this planet like you and many others. With one overriding directive...
Mysterious figure: Find the Fremen.
Mysterious figure: But when I finally came face to face with my quarry, I did not find the villains as described by the communinet or the Emperor...
Mysterious figure: Instead, I found a noble people being drawn into a conspiracy not of their making.
Mysterious figure: A conspiracy extending from the very heart of the Imperium to the dark corridors of -
Mysterious figure: I have to go.
Mysterious figure: They don't know where I am right now, but I can't risk them finding what I leave for you.
Mysterious figure: I wish there was more time.
Mysterious figure: I have much to tell you, but your mere presence in this secret chamber indicates that the ones who sent us will not stop until they achieve their aims.
Mysterious figure: I have hidden the details of my journey on a minimic film locked within the safe on the wall.
Mysterious figure: As with the security door and the deathstill, our blood is the key.
Mysterious figure: And now I lead the Sardaukar as far from here as I may.
Mysterious figure: Ma Salam.
Find the safe mentioned in the projection
Examine Ari: Tricky, tricky Fremen.
Ari: I believe more than half the technology in this room violates the first even Butlerian Proscriptions. Probably more.
Ari: "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."
Ari: And while the Fremen are ingenious, this technology far exceeds their reach.
Use blood to open safe
Stranger: Who are you really?
Player: What do you mean?
Stranger: This film is encrypted with a kind of protection I've only encountered in the restricted section at the Mnemosyne Library on Artisia.
Player: [Next]
Stranger: I believe that encryption was of Ixian origin.
Player: So how do we decode it?
Stranger: That's not good...
Player: [Next]
Stranger: We need an Ixian decoder to access whatever is on this. And I have access to the resources of a Great House.
Player: How do I know you won't just run off with that thing?
Stranger: Don't be concerned. I'll reach out when I have more information. If we Atreides are known for anything, it's our stiff-necked honor.
Player: [Next]
Stranger: Besides, as a mystery, you rank right up there with this film.
Player: [Next]
Stranger: "Parting with people is a sadness: a place is only a place."
Player: Goodbye.
Find a way out of the secret chamber
Ari: It's the Maas Kharet.
Ari: I'm going to try to draw them off. I'll make contact when I have the film decrypted.
Maas Kharet Leader: Infidels! The lightning worm cannot be deceived. You will pay for your desecration in blood!
Maas Kharet Leader: After them! Do not let them escape!
[TODO: add dialogue branches]
Trivia
Fremen scholar
The Cave of the Lost Pilgrim, visited during The Third Trial of Aql, contains a recording left by a Fremen scholar. This scholar is likely Ariste Atreides.
Fremen drawings
In the Valley of Echoes, during the Fall of Protheus journey, a cave drawing is shows an inner, a middle, and outer rings (Artstation). A similar set of rings need to be manipulated by the Player inside Sietch Ta'lab cave, during the The Footsteps of the Fremen journey.
Notable Thinking machines
Hand-power solido projection
Similarly to the door of Sietch Ta'lab, in the Forgotten testing station beneath testing station 29, during the Digging Deeper journey, the Player can restore sector power and activate a solido projection - by pressing their hand on the designated hand-shaped platforms (Artstation)
TODO: Ornate door + forbidden technologies
Trivia
Artisia was the capital planet of House Taligari, where the Mnemosyne Library was located.
Gallery
