Recently, I spent a lot of time in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla galloping east and southeast. There are beautiful views around Kent and Dover, and it’s nice to go to the beach sometimes instead of going through the damp fruit of the more wooded areas in Mercia.
That means I hovered over some of the side quests (or local mysteries) in the area that I had missed earlier, and one of them, even though it lasted three minutes, really made me laugh. It’s about a sea animal called Aflanc The Terrible, but it’s actually the most theatrical attempted murder ever, and the NPC in question has my lasting respect.
There are many interesting NPCs in Valhalla, from serious business missions like the three pagan witch sisters of King Lear scattered throughout East Anglia, to the more whimsical, such as’ woman living in a sewer demanding snake insides’, or ‘ man who somehow really likes baseball ‘. One of the nice things about the game is that you never know when you will encounter one and whether it will be a fairly involved quest.
When I saw these cliffs, for example, I was like, ‘Wow, I wonder if I’m going there, I’ll run into a murder mystery where two cops, one a cruel depressed one and one a nonsensical working mother, will start fighting , but forge respect and a loving friendship. Is Broadchurch too dark for an AC game and is it located in Dorset that falls outside the scope of the Valhalla card? Yes. But still. It could have happened.
Anyway, here’s what happened (spoilers for this particular quest I was thinking about):
My crew (and cat) and I were happily sailing down the river when we heard on the bank between Croindene and Guildford, a woman complaining loudly about her father (whose name I had already forgotten, so I’ll call her father) her immediately pushed into the river to drown. And like, she was mad about it, but mostly sounded upset; her tone was about appropriate, for if he had forgotten to take the chicken out of the freezer in the morning, they would not be able to eat the chicken for dinner now, and she was really looking forward to the chicken.
So I jumped off the ship to investigate. Griseld, the young woman in question, was sacrificed because their farm was allegedly flooded by a satanic animal called Aflanc The Terrible. Griseld was meant to appease Aflanc, who certainly exists, because one man named Godfrey said so.
So of course I went swimming and discovered that there was not a monster but just a shipwreck that sometimes sparks bubbles and flame. Griseld was upset about this news, and Dad was like, “Woah, no, but is there a monster?” And dan Godfrey came running up and said he was specifically telling Dad that there was no monster, and Dad was just looking for an excuse to kill Griseld because she annoyed him by saying, for example, that he drank too much and called him an exposition. Griseld replied by kicking Dad out.
So my thoughts were something like this:
- Oh my god, what a fighter of men. What an absolute hero. To become so incensed at what is at best a small annoyance, that you devise a sincere belief in a great monster as a reason to kill her. Great Old Testament energy.
- The plays of everything. He covers the riverbank with flower petals to commit his murder. Why do we do so much? Given the historical context, he could clearly just kill her and say a bandit did it. Or just pushed her in and said it was an accident. Or, actually, just killed her and did not bother to really hide it.
- As in The Witcher 3, every village you go to has a ghost that has been insisting on them for hundreds of years in their old apple orchard, even in the most fleeting investigation it appears to be the ghost of a teenage girl who went missing three weeks ago. , and whose blood is still visible on the ground. Dad would probably just be able to kick a few dead leaves over Griseld’s body and if anyone bothered to ask, the bitch says, she calls me a ‘layabout’. ‘
- Who is Godfrey? His relationship with any party here is not explained.
- Also what the hell, Godfrey, why do you only show up now that I’ve solved the problem? It is not as if it was done in secret. This potential murder is an event. There is a small crowd. What else do you do that was so important, Godfrey? Did you hide in the woods waiting for the most dramatic moment to arrive and reveal Dad’s terrible secret?
- Griseld is really crazy about this whole thing and I respect her for that, but I’m worried too.
- But seriously, this man put so much effort into drowning his daughter. He pretended to believe that a dangerous monster lived in the river for an unknown time. He probably has a reputation.
- Imagine that he carefully collects and distributes all the petals everywhere.
- He is clearly not a lie.
- I’m on his side.
Unfortunately, I did not manage to make a screenshot of Dad, but he, his indescribable robe and his bald head, are with me forever. If there is any justice in the world, it will start a great search where I can install Dad, who was kicked out of his daughter’s house, somewhere as king. He is the ruler who needs Valhalla’s hard times: ready to make the hard times, and wild outside all relationships decisions.
What I’m saying is that many of the side missions in Valhalla are absolutely nonsensical, and I love them all the more.