The Fall of King Alteon

The Fall of King Alteon and the Chaos Dragon

Shattersword Cavern

From his sickbed, Alteon recalls nearly dying in a fight with Graveclaw the Defiler decades ago. He imprisoned the beast beneath the Forest of Chaos to protect the nearby villages. When he sees Victoria carrying her weapon, he tells her to put it down and leave. You think her shooting could help, but Alteon hopes to spare his daughters the dangers of combat.

Alteon’s mages learned that keeping Graveclaw in battle drained his power, so Gravelyn sent warriors to fight him in the cavern. Alteon says the beast’s power mingled with the cavern’s dark magic, changing Graveclaw and twisting the warriors into his army. He’s strong enough to break out. When you ask where Gravelyn got volunteers for such a duty, Alteon says she never told him and he never asked.

Victoria joins you as Robina. She hopes what you do together will show her father what she’s capable of. You repair the security orbs and fight Graveclaw’s followers while she prepares a potion against the cavern’s poison. When the prisoners who once served Gravelyn attack an elf, Robina sends you to intervene and find JiSerai.

JiSerai says her people fled as Chaos grew stronger. Some still return to test themselves against its creatures, and she believes Graveclaw’s taint drove the Elves who came with her mad. She asks you to help bring her relatives’ bodies home and defend the Tree of Hope. She believes its light is already weakening Graveclaw’s hold and hopes it can heal the cavern and the forest. She also offers you a separate task collecting Dark Faerie sparks for her people’s Elixir of Light.

Robina and JiSerai both offer the same task: defeat Graveclaw before he reaches Swordhaven. You finish the fight Alteon began decades ago in a cavern strewn with bones. Robina thanks you for removing a threat to Swordhaven and Shadowfall.

Back at court, Victoria recognizes the marks the cavern left on your gear and offers help from the armory. She asks you to meet her later because her father leaves her out of his discussions of strategy. Alteon offers you a reward. You tell him you fought in his place while he was ill, and that he would have done the same. He fears he’ll need you to fight for him or his loved ones again. You promise to come whenever his land needs you.

Sources

Shattersword Cavern, Hero vs Beast, Shattersword release notes

The Sisterhood of the Dishpan Hands

Valencia is trying to sell you a blade she says came from a Dragon Khan’s claws when Cleric Dawn arrives in a soap bubble. She asks you to meet her at the portal, so you turn Valencia down and take a quick shower before following. Dawn says the Sisterhood has kept its work behind a spotless front. It needs someone who knows what Chaos looks like in a fight, and she wants to see whether she can trust you with that work.

Dawn sends you to examine the purity of the elements, bring back reports on what Chaorruption does to people and animals, and look for gateways Drakath might have hidden. You find no gateways, but your work earns you an invitation inside. Dawn washes away your grime and weariness, telling you that fatigue leads to mistakes and mistakes lead to disorder. The Sisters have spent years studying where Chaos comes from, what it does and how it spreads.

At the temple, Cleric Ivory warns that Chaorruption can leave eyes, tentacles or no visible sign at all. Cleric Miele describes how it can change a person’s body, personality and will, while Cleric Citra wants to know where it comes from. Dawn asks you to bring samples from Shadowscythe pilots in the Span and compare a newly Chaorrupted Water Dragon with a fully Chaorrupted Chaos Turtle.

You draw a glass from the temple pool, and Cleric Casca’de stops you before you drink. The water contains pure Chaos. Dawn explains that a Chaorrupted creature’s body remains dangerous after its spirit leaves. The Sisters use purification magic to lock away the Chaorruption so it can be studied safely. They hope to find a cure, and you promise to help.

Dawn also wants to know how Chaorruption affects someone from another realm. If you take on her extra study in the Sandsea, you find that it has made Tibicenas more powerful. Dawn keeps the result for her research.

Sources

Cleric Temple and its researchers, Cleric Dawn’s quests

The King’s Wound

Alteon's worsening infection is passing into the land through the bond between king and kingdom, leaving Swordhaven to suffer with him as rumors of his decline undermine its security. Determined that his family and realm survive whatever happens to him, he entrusts the city's defense to you, directing you to Denara for plans and Rufus to carry them out.

The Archives recall Alteon fighting for peace with Lynaria and later comforting Brittany after her mother's death, promising to teach her to be queen. Now Denara helps you investigate the corruption spreading beneath that kingdom. You gather samples for the Sisterhood of the Dishpan Hands and defeat the Sludgelord in the sewers, but the city's danger remains.

When Alteon worsens after drinking water, the guards arrest Page Alan despite his protest that he only poured it. Elsewhere, Brentan finally proposes after Brittany teases him about their childhood quarrels, promising to defend her and those she loves before she accepts.

With Chaos attacking the city and escaped prisoners stealing its weapons, you help recover the armory's supplies, arm civilians and support the Sisterhood's work on an inoculation. Joining Rufus and the defenders to hold the approach, you defeat the Chaos General and win a reprieve for the damaged city.

Alina’s Poisoner’s Puzzle

After Alteon is poisoned, suspicion falls on his Royal Alchemist. Alina goes to Raoul Silvertree’s manor to question him. He usually welcomes guests and courts the favor of the powerful. This time his gate is shut, and you help Alina use her potions to get across the river, open the gate and stop the pendulum blades inside.

You find Raoul in a spell-trance and use Alina’s potion on his alchemy circle. It leaves him unable to lie, but he can still refuse to talk. When he learns Alina’s assistant drank the soup and is near death, he wants to get to the castle. You have to fight the creature he summoned before you can finish questioning him.

Raoul admits that Alina’s apprentice Shendra is his daughter. He had her deliver a bottle to the new cook, assuring her the soup would only make people a little sick. Shendra liked Alina, thought the king was kind and distrusted the man she called the Metal Man. Raoul wanted Alina’s job and intended to win favor by producing an antidote that would leave the king susceptible to the right person. Now he begs Alina to save Shendra.

The Missing Knights

Shendra survives but can barely speak. Swordhaven is falling into Chaos, and loyal knights are disappearing, including Captain Rolith. Shendra says something about the Silver Man, then seems to say good night. You hear good knight and realize she may know something about the Pactagonal Knights. When you ask again, she speaks of Silver and Gold and only one way to be Good. Alina takes up a sword coated in magic-laced poisons and sets out to find the missing knights as the PoisonMistress.

You cut a path through Poisonforest with a draught that decays vegetation. There you find combustible Krialo Moss growing far from its usual habitat and help Jenna rebuild her damaged cottage. She gives Alina aniseweed pulp and sour sap in return.

The traitors have set the loyal knights on fire. You free them, and Alina uses Jenna’s pulp to make a salve. One of the captives is Rolith’s third-in-command. He pretended to side with the traitors and learned that Xavier Lionfang was behind the plan. Alina uses the moss to make a potion that corrodes the fort’s gate. Once inside, she asks how far you would go for the people you care about and coats your weapon with her Termination Tonic.

Xavier’s Sentence

Xavier says his brother Maximillian sent him and that he coordinated the poisoning to weaken Alteon. He plans to send brainwashed Pactagonal Knights back to the castle, giving his brother allies close to the king, then spread his own version of what happened at the fort. He burned the knights who refused to join him. Rolith tracks his men to the fort and fights beside Alina. He tells her how safe he feels with her at his side and asks her to marry him in the middle of the battle.

Xavier asks what makes Alina’s methods different from his. She acknowledges the blood on her hands and says she uses the skills she has for a cause she believes in. Rolith proposes imprisonment and promises humane treatment if Xavier cooperates. You can sentence Xavier to life in prison, or order an interrogation with Alina’s Veri-tonic followed by a sentence of execution. In both cases, the guards escort him away. Alina and Rolith tell you they’re engaged and ask for help with their wedding.

Sources

Alina’s Tale release notes, Alina’s Manor and Poisonforest quests, Lionfang’s Plans cutscene

The Wedding and the Beast

Brentan remembers Alteon blessing the marriage beside the royal dragon statue and asking whether he understood the duty of protecting a future queen, who would herself need someone to guard her. As you help with the wedding preparations and barricade the chapel, Alteon admits that he can sometimes see through Chaos spies' eyes, but insists on securing his daughter's future while he still can.

During the ceremony, you must subdue the Royal Justiciar as he succumbs to Chaos, only to see Alteon transform before his family as well. Brentan urges Brittany to take her sisters away, but she refuses to let her father continue while the king accuses you of acting too late and declares that the dragon will rise.

When Alteon reaches Tara through her dragon ring, Brittany sends you to free her sister while she confronts him. You break Tara's thralldom, but Alteon's attack kills Brittany, bringing him a brief recognition of what he has done. He asks you to protect his family and end his struggle before leaving, as Brentan, grieving his wife, demands the king's death.

By unwillingly spilling his heir's blood, Alteon fulfills the condition that awakens the royal dragon statue as the twelfth Chaos Beast, lighting another rune at Drakath's gate. Urged onward by Lady Celestia, you confront the three-headed dragon on the castle roof above the burning city before falling into the ruined throne room.

Alteon holds back from attacking as you appeal to the Sisterhood's search for a cure and, if you already know of them, the possibility of finding more Tears of the Mother. He refuses to trust either hope, explaining that although Chaos itself may be neither Good nor Evil, Drakath has given it a dark purpose. With less than an hour left as himself, he will not risk more lives and leaves to see Swordhaven once more.

You follow him through the Chaorrupted city to its overlook, where he still finds hope in what his daughters can rebuild and asks you to choose. You can accept his request, deliberately slaying him while honoring the king he was, or promise him a cure and refuse, only for him to attack and force you to strike back.

Alteon thanks you as his friend and warns that ambition and revenge may divide Good's armies when defeating Chaos must come first. If hope fails, he asks you to trust Gravelyn and the strength and light she can bring to the struggle, and you take his crown to return to his heirs with a promise that Drakath will pay.

After Alteon's death, Victoria, Brentan and Tara's supporters advance rival claims to Swordhaven. Victoria asserts her right as the eldest surviving daughter, while Tara herself is less interested in ruling than the advisers advancing her claim. Victoria chooses to protect Lore before defending her throne, taking her forces to Shadowfall rather than fighting two wars.

Brentan's faction and Tara's advisers appeal for Gravelyn's support in the succession dispute while offering excuses for neglecting the Alliance. Victoria and Gravelyn refuse to let that struggle hand victory to Drakath, so you help prepare Mobius's weapons, Arcangrove's magical defenses and Dwarfhold's resistance to the Chaos Drow before their representatives gather at Shadowfall.

Years Later: Purifying Alteon’s Crown

Years after Alteon’s death, Cleric Dawn helps you cleanse his crown. Chaos has grown less infectious, but Dawn says a powerful grudge keeps the gold tainted. The Sisterhood makes a preparation like the Tears of the Mother using traces from the Champion of Chaos, whispers from Slugwrath and calcified tears from the Queen of Monsters.

Dawn is relieved when it works. The Sisterhood’s failure to save Alteon has kept her awake for years. She believes Brittany would still be alive if they had saved him, and hopes Victoria and Tara can take some comfort in having their father’s crown cleansed.

Sources

Cleric Dawn’s crown purification quest