I believe the endgame of AO will take place in the Epicenter of the Dark Sea. What is the Epicenter? It was mentioned by an NPC at Sailor’s Lodge, described as a thousand miles of obsidian deserts, a truly horrifying place unfit for any form of life. This place is integral to the story of AO, and I’ll explain my reasoning why.
Firstly, we (MC), Morden, and Tucker are all special in the sense that we are experiments. What experiment were we from? We don’t know, but it’s clear that it was extremely important, as even Calvus recognises how strange we are.
King Calvus : Who are you, really?! Is this some kind of trick? I’ve only sensed that kind of energy once before… It can’t be…
King Calvus : DON’T PLAY DUMB WITH ME! The Order has been searching for people like you, you know. Perhaps I won’t kill you after all…
King Calvus : … You many not know your true power yet. but I can sense it… People with your blood are destined for great things in this world.
King Calvus : We believe your kind is the key to our true goal, so the Order captures people like you to perform experiments on…
King Calvus : So the Order had already captured you once. hmmm? You’re lucky to have avoided our grasp for this long. I won’t tell you what I sense in you, so don’t bother asking. You may become even more dangerous, should you awaken that potential.
King Calvus : I will this though… There is a great power that’s been sealed away for centuries, soon to be awakened. This power is part of our plan, but we can’t cannot unleash its seal on our own, even with the great power that the other High Lords possess.
A lot of players skim past Calvus’s dialogue, but it is UNBELIEVABLY important. Firstly, let’s recognise how ridiculously powerful the MC was able to become in such a short amount of time. In the original game of AA, the Peacekeeper had ridiculous potential due to his body being formed of tens of thousands of lives worth of magic. But us? It’s hard to say.
One of the things that we’ve seen several times in the Arcane Verse is that when weak people absorb curses, they go insane. Rupin is the biggest example. Now, before getting the Death Curse, Morden is quite literally a bum. He’s weak and can’t do much, yet how did he not go insane after recieving the power of an incredibly powerful Curse? This is the DEATH curse, no normal curse at all. Not just this, how on earth did he manage to sail into the Dark Sea BY HIMSELF and survive?
- Day 17 - “I found it. The area around it reeked of dead fish and… death. It’s an odd smell, and its something that I found chilling to my bones. The water around it was as still as glass, almost like you could see to the very bottom of the ocean if you wanted. Then I saw it, hovering a couple feet above the water surrounded in this black ichor aura that made all my hair stand on end. I’ve never felt fear like this, it’s like a base instinct of the fear of death, and it was in front of me like a grim reaper. I stopped shivering and quickly took it because I saw sails on the horizon and no one here would be friendly. I felt this darkness just rush through my body and you’d think it would be painful, but it wasn’t. It was cold. Calm. But also absolute. I’m terrified of this. What have I become? I never want to lose myself to this, I have too much at stake. I will make things right.”
We can see from the words of his journal, that he finds the Dark Sea harsh and the weather to be monstrous, but this is the DARK SEA, he should be going insane, yet somehow, he’s calm enough to write in his journal? And there it appears, black ICHOR. I’ll go into this later.
We and Morden are far from normal. And I believe it is because we have divine blood flowing through us, which allows us to grow immensely strong and handle the power of curses.
In one of Tech’s famous riddles pertaining to the story of AO, the first line mentions Golden Ichor of Long Past, and to do our best to make it last. This is a reference to us as the player, we hold the golden ichor of the Gods, their divine blood of long past. We have to make it last by continuing their legacy. Poseidon says so himself.
??? : Long have we waited for a legacy with a strong sense of justice… Come to me, seek destiny at Mount Othrys…
??? : There you are… The strongest will of all legacies
Legacy is defined as “the long-lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past, or of a person’s life.”
We are dealing with the events of the past, and fulfilling the fallen legacies of the Gods such as Poseidon. Ill get onto the specific event that we have to deal with later.
Poseidon : I wish I could tell you more, young one, you’ve made me proud so far, no doubt you’ll continue to do so. You have my support, I’ll be by your side always… Fulfill your destiny young warrior, do better than me, do better than us…
When Poseidon says do better than us, I don’t believe he is referring to us as the Olympian Gods, but us as the One-Shot Pirates, the strongest pirate crew to have ever existed, led by Arthur The Cursebeard. The greatest mistake the OSP ever made was ignoring the immense threat Durza posed, which ended up rupturing the world into the 5 Sea Clusters. It eventually ended with Cursebeard and the rest of the OSP dying to Durza and an Undead Zeus.
We are firing the furnace that burns still, the fallen legacies of the Gods that have gone unfulfilled for so long. We will restart the fire and finish what was not done before. And by fulfilling the legacies of them, we are triggering the Sword of Time, which shall fall upon us, and we must be ready.
Remember how I said I’d talk about the black ichor mentioned in Morden’s journal? Ichor is the blood of the gods as I mentioned before, and Morden also has this ichor running through him. I think it’s an interesting choice to use the word ichor in the journal by the game devs. Many references to death and the reaper are made. I believe this may be the work of Hades, with Morden holding a part of Hades’s legacy or at least holding his ichor. Most players have surmised by now that Morden will eventually go somewhat crazy and we will have to fight him. I believe this may happen because of Hades trying to steal control of him using the Death Curse. Why would Hades want to do this? If you all rememeber, after the events of Arcane Adventures, the Peacekeeper is meant to kill Hades, so what if after being killed, Hades tries to take over Morden’s body? It’s possible but my theory is quite weak here. On a sidenote, the Death Curse may be an experimental curse. Experimental curses are curses that were created by Hades and NOT Prometheus, only 2 others exist, the Absorption Curse, belonging to the Dark Wizard Durza, and the Lazarus Curse, belonging to Freedrock The Undying.
Now, let’s get into the Aesir Order’s motivations. It is related to the Epicenter, and I’m not sure what they need from there exactly. but I’ll explain my thoughts. First of all, they are collecting curses, not just a few, but an army’s worth. This is because curses make their users far stronger, much more durable, as well as granting a pseudo-immortality. They need curses so that they can withstand the journey to the very center of the Dark Sea, which no normal human could hope of living through. Some may think that the Aesir are merely trying to use curses to take over the War Seas, but this is not the case, after all, the War Seas have already been taken over by the Aesir. Calvus says so himself. Just the weakest High Lord of the Order dominated the entire Bronze Sea as a King. As for us, the experiments such as the MC and Morden, we are needed because of our divine blood, it is necessary to complete some kind of ritual in the epicenter, either that or our bodies are simply incredibly resistant to the insanity of the Dark Sea, and in that sense the Aesir wish to replicate out abilities.
It’s about time I go more into what the Epicenter actually is. Hundreds of years ago, during Theos, The War Phoenix’s prime days, he fought Durza. Theos in his prime was second to perhaps only Cursebeard himself, and he wiped the floor with Durza. Durza, afraid of death, used all the curses he had absorbed using his absorption curse, and made them explode. Now, it wasnt just a simple magic explosion, no, Durza quite literally made the curse itself explode, using all of its power in one attack, and he did this with several curses at once. After this attack, a catastrophic event of biblical proportions occured, the world, similar to ours, was broken into pieces. 80% of Humanity was obltierated and the continents became the 5 Sea Clusters. The Story of AA took place in the 7 Seas Cluster, the Story of AO takes place in the War Seas Cluster, the Story of Online Fighting took place in (not certain) The Old Sea Cluster (OBLITERATED). After this event, a dark force spread through the seas. The Dark Sea was born. The immense magic used in that one attack managed to pollute the world forever, causing the Dark Sea to be born. As for the Epicenter? It is obviously where the attack was used. The place where Durza used his massive curse blast… was Theos’s home kingdom. The Epicenter is most likely to be Theos’s homeland. This once again relates to Tech’s riddle, where we go to places of long past and inherit wills. Now, what could the Aesir want here? That’s a good question, and I honestly don’t know. I believe they intend to use the incredible/monstrous energy of the Epicenter to perform a ritual, perhaps to revive a God? Or something else, I’m not too sure.
We know from Calvus, that people like us and Morden are needed for the Order to Achieve their ‘true’ purpose. Why do they need people who hold the ichor of Gods? Does the leader of the Aesir wish to become a God himself? Or do they wish to revive the Gods? It’s truly hard to say as I don’t have much information to work with. It’s easy to say they wish to use the dark energy to revive Durza or do something involving Hades, but I believe this is not the direction Tech and Vetex are taking the story. Once more, how does Calvus know people like us are needed? Scroll up and read Calvus’s first line, he had sensed our energy once before. I believe this energy was that of the Aesir’s King and Leader. I believe he has the blood of a god flowing through him, and he may need more ichor than he currently has, which is why he needed people like us and Morden.
The end of AO will most likely be us and Morden versus the Aesir Order in the Epicentre. Hope this stuff convinced you.
I might post some more ideas of mine in this thread later on.
