I Know My Way Down The Side Streets Now : GW2

I wasn't all that impressed with GW2's Living World Season Three and after Path of Fire's somewhat perfunctory narrative I'm not building my hopes up for Season Four either. The best thing I can say about the current central storyline is that at least the fighting's not as painful as it used to be.

That doesn't mean that I'm not invested in the storyline or the characters. It's a soap opera. I know it's rubbish but I still want to know what happens next.

I don't really care all that much about the ultimate fate of Tyria, but I do want to know if Jory and Kas are going to continue on their downward spiral towards some kind of abusive, dysfunctional personal hell. I want to find out whether Braham's ever going to grow up and, more than anything, I want to know whether Zoja's going to recover.

Forget Gods and Dragons. This is my GW2. I know those people. I've spent five years with them. I mourn and miss the ones who've gone. Well, some.

I miss Scarlet. When she appeared as a Memory in The Domain of the Lost it was like unexpectedly meeting an old friend. One you'd thought had died.

I miss her enough to imagine things. Enough to imagine that maybe she might not be dead after all. It's not such a stretch. As I expounded at length a while back, no-one ever really dies in Tyria. Why should Scarlet be the exception?

My fantasy didn't come from nothing. Not this time. There's something mysterious afoot.

For some while now GW2's best storytelling has been happening in the shadows, on the sidelines, left of center, off of the strip. The apologetically labelled "Side Stories" have given us more to chew on than the main course, at least if you're feasting on speculation and puzzlement. I still don't know what my Krait Oil's good for but I'm hanging on to it.

It was disappointing not to find one of the single line throwaway hints buried in the last Update Notes but it transpires that there are some stories too obscure even for that. It was by sheer chance, as I was idly flipping through the forums, that I came across this.

Naturally I dropped everything to investigate. First I went to Godlost Swamp and ran around. Didn't find anything new although I did have a number of post-ironic conversations with various god-botherers who don't seem to have updated their theology since launch day.

Tapping out in the swamp I waypointed to Lornar's Pass and flew my griffon down to Reaver's Gate. I had more luck there. The corpse was cold (and bald) but the trail was still warm.

I went through the dead priest's pockets and found a journal. Isn't there always a journal? In the interests of science and to scratch that itch I opened it.

A red lady, speaking in dreams, seeking allies...could that be...? Well, doesn't it fit the pattern? Wasn't she always about the alliances?

I knelt to Grenth's statue, which still seems able to dispense buffs even though Grenth himself has taken the last train to the coast. With some prompting from the forums I took several screenshots in which you can faintly see the shapes of New Krytan text but what it means or whether it's new I have no idea.

The forums also told me that what I wanted in Godslost I could only find when the Shadow Behemoth makes his two-hourly showing. He was near due so I ported back there and waited. And it might have been a long wait if I hadn't gone and done the pres myself - no-one else was bothering.

When he did arrive he brought with him several "Mysterious Skeletons". They weren't attackable. They just stood there, surrounded by black fuzz like fungus on a log. They are indisputably new but their inscrutability gives nothing away.

The Behemoth eventually fell. I was ready for what came next but had I not been pre-warned I doubt I'd have spotted it. A small, orange-red "Mysterious Spirit" spawned and shot off across the swamp. I gave chase, wildly snapping my camera in its general direction until it came to a halt beside another dead body.

There's a necromancer who lives in a hut nearby so I went to ask him if he knew anything. He did, a little. More necromancy. Something about a call. It didn't help much.

For now that seems to be all there is but you can feel it in the wind. Something's coming.

I just hope it's Her.