Bookflog: Mogworld by Yahtzee Croshaw (Part Three: Chapters 3-8)
And so, buzzed by the sweet taste of fruity yerba mate tea, I continue with the section by section look at Mogworld.
Shhh... spoilers!
So, after yet another near life experience, Jim and company wake up captured by gnolls. The gnolls turn them over to adwarf and an elf improbably named Mr. Wonderful and Bowg respectively. Mr. Wonderful has a self mutilation streak that would have the Marquis de Sade sitting up and taking notice and might be able to give the Joker lessons in grinning maniacally. I am both heartened and disturbed by what looks like a steal-your-baby elf rather than a treehugging elf. Bowg has all the personality of a damp towel. Bowg and Mr. Wonderful haul the zombiekins off to Lolede City to be tried in front of the king for violations regarding the distribution of XP in accordance with the rules set forth by the Adventurers' Guild.
Upon arrival in the city, a few things become very apparent. First the king is not in charge. Second, everyone and their mum seems to want to get rid of the Adventurers' Guild. The undead get tossed into the dungeon and Jim finally gets to enjoy some piece and quiet, broken only by the sounds of Meryl wondering why he doesn't want to be a hero and the AFBP doing his usual thing. And then everyone and their mum tries to give them a key to escape their cells because everyone and their mum has a vested interest in seeing them running around and causing trouble. They decide to go find the Magic Resistance Partly because that's what they wanted to do in the first place and also because Mr. Wonderful wants to know where they are so he can use his big knife on someone other than himself. Slippery John makes a breiif reappearance, is annoying and then thankfully is turned into a bunny for most of the rest of this section.
The zombiekins find that the Magic Resistance consists of two people: Baron Civious and his wife. Both of whom are very interested in Dreadgrave's experiments and how he managed to make undead in the first place (apparently that had been a first). Meryl is a fangirl and apparently was Dreadgrave's prime assistant. Mrs. Civious is the old necromancer witch I wish I lived next door to. They make an important discovery. Jim and the rest of the zombiekins are apparently poisonous to the things living in the possessed adventurers heads (which we alreadly had some inkling of since Jim touched Drylda in the middle of one of his earlier near life experiences). The Civiouses tell them about a place they call the Nexus, which appears to be the center of all Deleter influence. In order to end the influence of both the Adventurers' Guild, stop people from getting possessed and return everything back to some semblance of normal, the Civiouses would like them to go to the Nexus and corrupt it like cat pee on a wedding gown... as soon as they figure out how to do so effectively.
Jim mentions Drylda at this point, about how she was possessed by a little deleter and how his touch made it go away. The Civiouses are intrigued.
Meanwhile in Developer Land...
Bill (aka Dub in case I forget) and Don are trying desperately to get Simon off the build. Simon is generally agreed to be both an idiot and an ass, however they are having trouble convincing their boss of this since Simon has developer cred (or something, I would have moved him elsewhere). Don goes on a vacation to destressify, leaving Dub to try and run damage control.
I have to say that at this point I wish that this had been written in third person with two primary perspectives. Since there's really no effort to deceive the reader into thinking that Jim's world is "real," it would have been interesting to see how this would be tackled from two completely different angles: the self aware game characters and the developers themselves. I just see more potential for the bad guys to seem more there and less spastic and to give some more believable interactions between characters in the story as a whole.
On the plus side, the story is getting more interesting and the more forced bits of humor seem to be fading somewhat. I still hate the system of chaptering but what can one do?
Shhh... spoilers!
So, after yet another near life experience, Jim and company wake up captured by gnolls. The gnolls turn them over to adwarf and an elf improbably named Mr. Wonderful and Bowg respectively. Mr. Wonderful has a self mutilation streak that would have the Marquis de Sade sitting up and taking notice and might be able to give the Joker lessons in grinning maniacally. I am both heartened and disturbed by what looks like a steal-your-baby elf rather than a treehugging elf. Bowg has all the personality of a damp towel. Bowg and Mr. Wonderful haul the zombiekins off to Lolede City to be tried in front of the king for violations regarding the distribution of XP in accordance with the rules set forth by the Adventurers' Guild.
Upon arrival in the city, a few things become very apparent. First the king is not in charge. Second, everyone and their mum seems to want to get rid of the Adventurers' Guild. The undead get tossed into the dungeon and Jim finally gets to enjoy some piece and quiet, broken only by the sounds of Meryl wondering why he doesn't want to be a hero and the AFBP doing his usual thing. And then everyone and their mum tries to give them a key to escape their cells because everyone and their mum has a vested interest in seeing them running around and causing trouble. They decide to go find the Magic Resistance Partly because that's what they wanted to do in the first place and also because Mr. Wonderful wants to know where they are so he can use his big knife on someone other than himself. Slippery John makes a breiif reappearance, is annoying and then thankfully is turned into a bunny for most of the rest of this section.
The zombiekins find that the Magic Resistance consists of two people: Baron Civious and his wife. Both of whom are very interested in Dreadgrave's experiments and how he managed to make undead in the first place (apparently that had been a first). Meryl is a fangirl and apparently was Dreadgrave's prime assistant. Mrs. Civious is the old necromancer witch I wish I lived next door to. They make an important discovery. Jim and the rest of the zombiekins are apparently poisonous to the things living in the possessed adventurers heads (which we alreadly had some inkling of since Jim touched Drylda in the middle of one of his earlier near life experiences). The Civiouses tell them about a place they call the Nexus, which appears to be the center of all Deleter influence. In order to end the influence of both the Adventurers' Guild, stop people from getting possessed and return everything back to some semblance of normal, the Civiouses would like them to go to the Nexus and corrupt it like cat pee on a wedding gown... as soon as they figure out how to do so effectively.
Jim mentions Drylda at this point, about how she was possessed by a little deleter and how his touch made it go away. The Civiouses are intrigued.
Meanwhile in Developer Land...
Bill (aka Dub in case I forget) and Don are trying desperately to get Simon off the build. Simon is generally agreed to be both an idiot and an ass, however they are having trouble convincing their boss of this since Simon has developer cred (or something, I would have moved him elsewhere). Don goes on a vacation to destressify, leaving Dub to try and run damage control.
I have to say that at this point I wish that this had been written in third person with two primary perspectives. Since there's really no effort to deceive the reader into thinking that Jim's world is "real," it would have been interesting to see how this would be tackled from two completely different angles: the self aware game characters and the developers themselves. I just see more potential for the bad guys to seem more there and less spastic and to give some more believable interactions between characters in the story as a whole.
On the plus side, the story is getting more interesting and the more forced bits of humor seem to be fading somewhat. I still hate the system of chaptering but what can one do?