Seeking Revenge

Chapter 2: Seeking Revenge is the second "level", or chapter, of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. It marks the formal beginning of gameplay, opening with Kain's awakening in his mausoleum and concluding upon his arrival at the Pillars of Nosgoth.

Plot

In the Blood Omen era, a few days after his assassination, Kain awakens in his mausoleum, and begins adjusting to his unlife as a vampire. Bent on attaining the vengeance promised to him by Mortanius, he makes his way out of the crypts and into the open Cemetery. Exiting the graveyards, he quickly tracks down the men who murdered him, and violently exacts revenge by drinking their blood. With this task accomplished, he believes his quest is over.^[1]

Mortanius, however, is swift to correct him, informing him that the brigands were the instruments of his murder, but not the cause. Their masters, he claims, are connected to the Pillars of Nosgoth. Passing through Ziegsturhl, Kain ponders his folly in accepting the Necromancer's offer so hastily, wondering if his gift was a curse, but is soon distracted by the beauty of the distant Pillars. He makes his way to their central dais, and is met by a spirit.^[1]

The specter is that of Ariel, the murdered Guardian of the Pillar of Balance. She explains that her murder triggered a chain of events which resulted in the Pillars' corruption, and Kain's only hope of finding a cure to his vampirism lies in their restoration. Though apathetic about Nosgoth's health, Kain silently agrees to undertake this odyssey for his own sake. For each Pillar, there is a Guardian symbiotically bound to it, and each Guardian must die for Nosgoth to be redeemed: Nupraptor, Ariel's lover in life, is to serve as his first kill.^[1]^[2]

Walkthrough

The Cemetery

Kain's Mausoleum

BO1-Map0006-Sect11-KainMausoleum — Map of Kain's Mausoleum.

Upon awakening in his crypt, Kain begins with the following equipment:

Iron Sword: "This is your basic weapon, available from the start. With it you can cut open barrels and hack down bushes. The Iron Sword has all the regular combos."
Iron Armor: "Your basic suit, available from the beginning."^[3]

He must press the switch in the northwest corner of the room to open the exit. In the following room, he will discover the Sanctuary spell:

File:BO1-Icon-Spell-Sanctuary.png Sanctuary: "This is the first spell you learn; allows you to escape to the crypt if in trouble. A useful spell to use if trapped. It will also replenish some of your health."^[3]

When Sanctuary is collected, the north door will open. Kain encounters his first potential meal - a gravedigger whom he must kill. After slaying him, Kain can continue to the next room, and push the nearby boulder out of the way to collect his first battle artifact:

Heart of darkness (objects): "This can be used in two ways. If you ready it and use it before you are killed, it will resurrect you back to nearly full health. If you die with one (either readied or simply in your inventory), it will resurrect you back to life, with all your items, but it will only give you a little blood."^[3]

Traveling north to the next room, Kain can press the floor switch to access the west room (with a chained human and a blood vial). The floor switch in this room will open another chamber to the east, with a second captive and a rune triangle. Returning to the central room, Kain must press the wall switch mounted just right of the locked door to progress.^[3]

The skeleton in the next room will not actively attack Kain, but will explode and deal damage if he comes into contact with it. There is a magic sphere to collect, and a save altar in the room to the east. Avoiding the spike pits, Kain should travel north, following the stairs and corridor to leave the Mausoleum.^[3]

The Cemetery

BO1-Map0001-Sect70-Cemetery — Map of the Cemetery.

Following the linear track south, Kain will encounter another gravedigger before entering the second mausoleum. Inside, the chamber just east contains another Save Altar. Traveling west, Kain will meet more skeletons, gravediggers and captives. There is another blood vial and rune triangle to pick up on the way, before entering the next room.

The wall switch will remove a section of the spike pit here, enabling Kain to travel forth and slay a skeleton. Another switch just west lowers the barrier and the way to another skeleton. There are three switches on the wall just beyond; they must be pressed "in, in and out" respectively to clear the way. In the following area, Kain finds another gravedigger, and a second artifact:

Flay artifacts: "This tracking projectile strips the flesh from an enemy's bones. More than one might be required. A good strategy for this slow-moving projectile is to fire five or six, forming a moving wall, and walk behind them. When you encounter an enemy, the Flays will focus on him immediately."^[3]

In the next area, Kain discovers a number of sarcophagi. Approaching these will yield another Heart of Darkness and a Flay. Traveling west and then north, slaying more skeletons on the way, he will find a pair of boulders with bloody, circular runes beneath them. These cannot be pushed aside at this point in the game, but will reveal a secret area later. The east chests contain Kain's third rune triangle and Heart of Darkness.^[3]

There is another Save Altar in the next room, and the exit leads out into the main Cemetery and Kain's battle with his assassins. The southern zones in the Cemetery cannot be accessed until a later chapter. On the way, he encounters a zombie: it will just revive if killed with the Iron Sword, but Flay artifacts can destroy it.^[3]

Kain's assassins are just north, beyond the Cemetery gates. There are nine Brigands to kill. They are easily dispatched, but will overwhelm Kain if confronted all at once, so he should progress gradually, luring one or two into combat at a time. He will find another magic sphere along the trail. When all nine are slain, Kain can progress east to Ziegsturhl.^[3]

Ziegsturhl

This is the first of many human settlements which Kain can explore. There are no hostiles within the town area itself, and he can feed on the villagers at leisure without fear of repercussion, but there are foes in the wilderness, further south. Inside the northernmost building - the familiar tavern - he will find only enemies; a wench and a man-at-arms. The barkeep cannot yet be accessed.^[3]

The house just east contains two non-aggressive villagers, and a barrel which Kain can break with the Iron Sword to obtain a Flay. The final accessible building, further south, houses another villager and two barrels with two more Flays. If it is nighttime, Kain will encounter sleeping villagers in the latter two buildings instead of wandering citizens.^[3]

Back outside, the trail east, across the bridge and north towards the Pillars, is linear, with no collectibles but many peasant swordsmen, and Knife throwers. These are the first projectile-wielding enemies Kain will meet, but their aim is rough, so they can be slain with ease if approached with caution.^[3]

The region west of the Pillars

Progressing north, Kain will find a teleporter, which will take him directly to the Pillars of Nosgoth, and the next chapter.^[3]

Transcript

Players (in order of appearance)

Kain (voiced by Simon Templeman) and Kain's voiceovers

Brigands/Kain's assassins

Mortanius (voiced by Tony Jay)

Ariel (voiced by Anna Gunn)

Dialogue: The Cemetery

	[Awakening within his tomb:]
Kain (V.O.):	I awoke to the pain of a new existence, in a dank womb of darkness and decay.
	[Kain finds a Save Altar:]
Kain (V.O.):	Within the walls of these chambers I could find respite. And, if I so chose, resume my journey when my weariness abated.
	[Kain emerges from his mausoleum and enters the graveyard:]
Kain (V.O.):	The world had changed to my eyes. I had not expected such cruelty from the light. For in the embrace of the sun, I could find no comfort, only malice. This would change in time for the worse, along with other things.
	[Exiting graveyard:]
Kain (V.O.):	Hunger and weakness are no bar to vengeance's call. I would find my slayers and send them back whence I came.
	[Kain confronts his murderers:]
Brigand:	What trickery is this?
Brigands:	There he is! Kill him! I thought we killed you, bastard! Have at ye, cur! If we put you down once, we can do it again!
Kain (V.O.):	Their sneering faces were forever etched upon my memory. I had crossed death for this moment. My mind was empty save for one thought: I would kill.
	[After killing the brigands and drinking their blood:]
Kain (V.O.):	There is no greater release than that from vengeance sated. With my assassins dead, my quest was over.
	[Mortanius contacts Kain remotely:]
Mortanius:	'Tis not over, Kain. These fools were merely the instruments of your murder, not the cause. Look to their masters. Look to the Pillars and gain way to the Fortress of the Mind...

Dialogue: Ziegsturhl

	[Kain comes across a signpost that reads "Ziegsturhl":]
Kain (V.O.):	This was where the bloody deed of my murder took place. I would not be kind to the denizens that lurk here. They would taste my steel, and I their blood.
	[Crossing a bridge while leaving Ziegsturhl:]
Kain (V.O.):	The Necromancer had offered me no warning as to what my resurrection would entail, and yet I must confess, in my haste, I had not sought one. Was his gift a curse? I would seek the Pillars for an answer.

Dialogue: The region west of the Pillars

	[Kain nears the Pillars:]
Kain (V.O.):	The Pillars of Nosgoth. Even in life, few sights have moved me such as this. I marveled that such beauty should grace our dying world.

Dark Diary: Ghost of the Pillars

	[The Pillars at night; wind blows eerily between the solemn sentinels of marble and other indescribable materials. Moonlight plays of the surfaces, lending the scene an eerie blue cast. The figure of a comely woman appears amidst the Pillars, talking to herself it seems. Establishing shot from Kain's point of view. Long shot of Ariel disappearing behind a Pillar. The camera follows her around the Pillar while she talks.]
Ariel:	Nupraptor, your madness has shattered our dreams and blinded you...
Kain:	Keep your distance or I'll send you back to Hell, spirit!
Ariel:	There is nothing left of me to fear vampire. I am only a shadow of my former self... Ariel – the Balance of the Circle of Nine. Even so, I can provide the answers you seek.
Kain:	I seek only a cure.
Ariel:	There is no cure for death. Only release. You must destroy the sorcery that is now poisoning Nosgoth. Only then will you realize peace. The Nine of the Protectors of Hope were sworn to use their powers to preserve our world. Now these pillars have been corrupted by a traitor.
	[Ariel turns toward the camera to reveal her ravaged face. Flesh has been ripped away to reveal the naked bone beneath.]
Ariel:	My murder at the hands of this beast drove my love Nupraptor mad. Now he spreads misery and pain among the Circle, crumbling the very foundation of Nosgoth. You must restore balance. You must right the Pillars of Nosgoth.
	[A "hallucination" of Nupraptor sewing his eyes shut floats, semi-transparent in the moonlit air.]
Kain:	(with distaste) I care not for the fate of this world.
Ariel:	(fading out) Then for yourself Kain... Beware the Unspoken...
	[Ariel fades to total transparency as her voice fades.]

Conclusions

This chapter has marked the first appearance of Kain's Mausoleum and the Cemetery, and the first mentions of Nupraptor, Janos Audron and the Unspoken. Nupraptor's Retreat is also mentioned, but it is referred to only as the Fortress of the Mind.
The names of Kain, Ariel, Ziegsturhl, Nosgoth and the Pillars of Nosgoth have been given in dialogue.
Kain has killed those directly responsible for his assassination. He has realized that he is a vampire (and thus, in his opinion, cursed), that the orchestrator of his assassination is still active in Nosgoth, and that he must right the Pillars of Nosgoth to realize peace.
It has been revealed that the Circle of Nine (the Pillar Guardians) once presided over the Pillars, but they are now corrupted thanks to an unidentified traitor, and the Guardians are insane. The significance of Ariel's murder in the preceding chapter has been revealed. She was a member of the Circle - the Balance Guardian - and her murder drove her lover, Nupraptor (the Mind Guardian), mad. He turned his magic against his fellow Circle members, permanently driving them to irrevocable derangement.
Despite his apathy, Kain sets out to return balance to Nosgoth by restoring the Pillars, assuming that this will lead to a cure for his vampirism.

Notes

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is not formally divided into chapters in-game. The chapter names and definitions used at the Legacy of Kain Wiki originate from the supplementary Prima guide, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain: Official Game Secrets, with one exception - the Prima Guide positions Kain's murder and resurrection in this chapter instead.^[3]

The dialogue transcripts used in this article are adapted from Tenaya's original transcript of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain at Nosgothic Realm, and the pair of official Silicon Knights/Crystal Dynamics scripts hosted at The Lost Worlds as of 2012. As in the Nosgothic Realm transcript, some scene descriptions have had to be manually revised to reflect the finished product, but these edits are intended to be as slight as possible.^[2]^[4]

When the player obtains control of the vampire Kain in the Mausoleum, the "Time Played" counter in Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain's status screen always begins from "4 days and 17 hours" (regardless of how much time the player spent in the Ziegsturhl prologue sequence). This apparently means that Chapter 2: Seeking Revenge begins 4 days and 17 hours after Kain entered the tavern in Welcome to Hell.^[5]

Due to what is probably a minor bug in the game, Kain's assassins will reappear every time he returns to the Cemetery, and some of the dialogue from this sequence will replay if he fights and kills them "again".

The official script indicates that a cinematic, to be named "For the Blood is the Life...", was planned to be played just as Kain kills the last of his assassins. It was to contain no dialogue, but would show Kain tearing out the throat of his final victim, overcome by a feral urge to feed, followed by a fade to black. Shifting, fading images of the Pillars of Nosgoth, degenerate creatures (perhaps mutants), and Nupraptor and his retreat would follow - possibly to set up Kain's ability to read his victims' thoughts, as seen later in Stranded in Time. No such cutscene is present in the final game, and there is no evidence that it survived to a production stage.^[2]

The Ghost of the Pillars cinematic is faithful to the official script, retaining all of its planned dialogue, although some of the visual cues take place in different order in the final product.^[2]

Silicon Knights created a document for composer Steve Henifin to use in creating original music for each cinematic in Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain; in the final product, only one cinematic used one of these original compositions. The thematic guidelines for Ghost of the Pillars read as follows:
"Sorrow, fragility, mourning, "Lost love", wonder, mystery of the "Stonehenge" type."^[6]