SOUNDTRACK
We were given a map to the Cosmic Tree, the final destination of our quest. The tree is not in particularly difficult territory, so we just walk up to the tree and have a chat with the final boss.
Zmey (this is apparently his name; he's either referred to as "Zmey" or "the Zmey" but never "a Zmey") is referred to as a "master trickster." His main trick in the scope of our interactions is that he can punch people really hard. He sometimes displays a second trick of being able to be punched really hard. It's nice that modern narratives have enough clever antiheroes in them that so many people want to think of themselves as tricksters, but it's a lot easier to call yourself a trickster than to regularly pull off tricks. As with Internet trolls, so with potato dragons.
Anyway, we elect to resolve this challenge by punching him, because we too have a few tricks up our sleeves! Or possibly at the ends of them!
I didn't screenshot the battle because it took one round. It began with three of our dudes taking out Zmey before he could act, and ended with the rest of the incredibly overpowered party proceeding to stomp his coterie of elder drakes into the ground and urinate on their corpses in the remaining half a round.
As a reward for completing our glorious quest, we get a few diamonds and some mid-tier materials! These rewards are slightly worse than what we got from killing those spiders at the beginning of the game.
But the non-material rewards are pretty good. All wounds healed, and several large, permanent stat buffs to three characters.
The thread voted to restore the tree.
So it was written, so it is done. Then this chick shows up and asks if she can join the Cool Kids on their quest! I guess we don't have a quest anymore, but sure, come along!
(If you restore the tree and haven't managed to get Alysir killed earlier in the questline, you randomly get either her or Alysir himself, who's probably the strongest joinable character in the game. If we'd destroyed the seed, we'd get a pretty mediocre sage. If we'd given the seed to the forces of darkness (not an option for Svarog), we'd have gotten an Orc Matriarch, who's a complete badass.) Instead, we get this chick. This chick is okay.)
Also:
We won!
The darkness will recede. High Magic will return to the world and its gods. Or, rather, God.
For if you recall the third update, we built a shrine to Svarog with obsidian instead of gold, and apparently doing that upended the order of the world! Nay, the universe! Nay, all quantum alternate universes! Svarog becomes pantokrator, ascends to sole rulership of the pantheon, and the future course of the cosmos is dictated by his whims. From the spires of the highest pooptower to the depths of the lowest untraversable water tile, the people bow down and acclaim him as king of big dick mountain.
Until someone else comes along and builds a shrine to their god using poop instead of wood.
THE END
. . . or IS IT?!
This ends the base game. In the time since I started this LP, a free DLC came out that continues the game past this point. I haven't actually played it, and I'm a little fuzzy on how the game is going to provide good challenges after your god conquers the universe, but we can check it out if the thread voices interest.
If you want me to LP the DLC, though, it's probably best if I just start over with another playthrough, and ideally another god. There are apparently a lot of new events in it, and presumably some of them appear in the early game. Moreover, through a combination of unusually good luck and me not wanting to look stupid in front of the esteemed gentlemen of the Codex, our expedition party is absurdly powerful, and we're stronger at turn 150 than is usually possible by turn 300.
Becoming overpowered is fun, but continuing to play after you've done that isn't usually that interesting. The game is not really meant to be played without getting any important villagers killed, and the absence of that happening was one of the more unfortunate aspects of this LP. Sorry about being overly competent and letting you all down.