: duckyjo, you the man!
: The Deciever is not freakin' dead. He's survived duals
: with four of the most powerful sorcerers ever known,
: he had no problem at all killing Shiver, he survived
: being stuck in the ice for 60 years, and is not ABOUT
: to die from a lame death explosion.
: In the scripting, the action that gives you back control
: of the Deciever is called "He's yours until he's
: dead." Therefore, the scripter intended for him
: to die, but I believe that this is meant to be a faked
: death. I mean c'mon! If YOU were the Deciever, would
: you want to spend the rest of your life as Alric's
: lackey? This is the best way to go out! Make everyone
: think you're dead, so NO ONE expects you ever coming
: back! He's not ruling out any options... If he were to
: be like "Cya later!" they'd all think
: "When's he gonna turn up again?" This gives
: him the advantage of surprise no matter what he wants
: to do. Oh, and did I mention his name? The DECEIVER!
: As a master of deception, this is his coup de grace!
: It's the Deciever's latest trick.
RIGHT! Why should the deceiver get his ass kicked taking out shiver when he managed to damn near kill the watcher (much more powerful than shiver) without even getting scratched. Well, that is if you call getting imprisoned scratched.
Here's what I think:
Well, you know how the D's supposed to be some really ass-kickin' sorcerer, even without Balor's help. Let's review the magic that he uses throughout the games:
1.Ribbons of fire that tear flesh from bone (shadow of the mountain)
2.Clouds of poison that rotted men to peices in mere seconds (also shadow of the mountain)
3.Converting units (shadow of the mountain, relic, shiver, summoner)
4.withering (relic, summoner, shiver)
5.call down lightning (murder of crows)
6.Travelling through odd angles (the wall)
7.stasis (deceiver)
8.Teleport along with others (deceiver)
9.almost any other thing you could think of.
OK. Now that we've got that finished, what are the two that he uses most often when we see him? That's right. Withering and converting. Now if I was the Deceiver, and I was facing all of those guys inside the tain, in soulblighter's camp, and near shiver, I sure as hell wouldn't be using Wither. I'd be kick some ass with lightning, ribbons of fire, and poinous gas. Now, you should be asking yourself why he didn't use these to wreck the myrks and thrall, instead of relying on a dwarf, warlock, archer, and two herons to do it for him. He sure as hell could've waltzed right into Shivers camp and wrecked everything she had. He could've walked to the tain while blasting myrks left and right, and into it shredding every living and nonliving thing in his path, right? RIGHT!
So why didn't he? It's because he was using most of his power doing something else, and couldn't spare much extra energy on such trivial things as saving the world. What could these things be? Holding an undead to his will (phelot). Scouring the world for something (he must've been searching for something). Combating other-worldly powers. Double-dealing, etc.
So what exactly was he doing? Here's my theory.
1. While in stasis, he was not only keeping himself alive, but keeping hundreds of warlocks there to protect him, and keeping an eye on the events of the world. He could've gotten out at any time he really wanted, but he wanted to be ready for anything without worrying about his physical body, so he kept it from aging and from being harmed.
2. On the journey to Muirthemne, with the stop at Twelve Duns, he was still keeping an eye on what was going on in the world, while searching at the same time for powerful artifacts and stuff of the like. He seems to have stumbled onto the tain shard pretty easily.
3. In the tain shard, he had to keep an exit open from the inside. They certainly didn't use the back door that Murgen and Cu Roi used, so it was the Deceiver's own power that kept an exit handy.
4. In soulblighter's camp, he was finding a weakness, and at the same time communicating with the elemental forces that soulblighter commanded. Do you really think that that weakling elemental creature could've kept him contained very well? I don't think so. He was also keeping Phelot turned to his will.
5. With shiver, he was busy searching for a way out of it all. He finally transferred most of his consciousness into phelot, and set up a trap in shiver so that when she died, he would seem to do so also. Up goes the death shower initiator, out goes the rest of the D's soul, mind and all into phelot. out goes phelot. Up goes the D's body. It all works out fine.
