Last time, a crazy guy wanted to explore the world by crossing the southern mountain range.

For some reason I don’t get a mock quest prompt like I did in chapter 1. I had to go to Ques’ records afterward to see the quest name.

The music for this quest is well-selected, I think. It encapsulates both the tragedy of Desmon’s madness and the significance of the mission. It’s similar to the music used for other quests in this chapter as well, so it works well as a final-dungeon-remix kind of thing. The only bad part is that, well, remember when I said my brain associates RTP tracks with Last Scenario? Last Scenario used the track for something quite different, so I’m being hit with a weird sort of musical cognitive dissonance this entire quest.

I need to talk to Desmond to start the quest proper. He explains what my role will be: since he’s a squishy non-fighter, I need to scout the path ahead and remove any dangers before he can proceed. Weirdly, I can tell him to advance even if the path isn’t safe yet, in which case his morale will decrease. If it hits zero, I fail the quest, except I don’t actually because this is all that happens:

Yeah, even in major storyline quests this is the worst thing that can happen. I mean, I guess if you’re far ahead you do have to restart from the beginning (and the timer doesn’t reset, not that that’s a concern here), but the game is still pretty forgiving about game overs. Moreso than I Miss the Sunrise, actually!

Ques: “In addition, I shall serve as a pace keeper, to ensure we all stay reasonably together.”

This means Ques will yell at me if I try to ditch Desmon by going too far ahead, like this:

I head forward.

This one is pretty simple, I just have to fight the bloodhawks. I get a rather large morale penalty if I try to send Desmon ahead, probably because I’d have to be blind not to notice them.

Urgh, this area.

It looks safe if I scout ahead, but there’s an invisible menace that I can only find by wandering around randomly.

There you are. Die, snake.

Next up is another battle. How did they get up here? There’s only one path, they’d have to get past the guild. Guess they got here earlier?

If only we could coax someone tall into distracting the hawks while Desmon passes by underneath…

For some reason I can’t just lure them down myself and fight them. Instead I have to do this:

I tell him I need him to distract the bloodhawks.

Heh. These all produce the same result.

Ques: “Well, you are in luck. I was once a skilled swordplayer, and am quite agile, you see.”

He walks up to the rocks. Before he climbs up, he says, “There will be hell to pay if I tear my favorite gloves, you know.” Why does he keep wearing his favorite clothes on dangerous missions???

With Ques distracting them, Desmon is free to proceed. Ques jumps down afterward, at which point I…can pass under the bloodhawks without issue. What was the point of all that, then?!

This part is a maze. Desmon apparently has no sense of direction and needs me to give him perfect instructions, or else he’ll flip out and lose morale. It’s basically just a memory test, then, but a fairly simple one.

And that’s the last hurdle. Ques informs me that the summit is just over the next ridge.

Desmon starts behind but rushes forward until he’s at the front, which I think is a nice touch.

He walks forward, but there’s a shrill cry.

Desmon starts freaking out and backs away. The guild rushes to defend him.

Hello, giant sky falcon from nowhere! Even with having so few boss fights, The Reconstruction can’t avoid this trope, it seems.

Probably because of this, the hemofalcon is really boring. It’s basically just a bloodhawk on steroids (though its regular attack deals soul damage instead of body). It opens with the same Mad Swoop attack that the bloodhawks have.

I think that the main source of difficulty in this battle are the five bloodhawks the hemofalcon brings with it. They can’t inflict much damage, but they can frequently incapacitate your party members, leaving them sitting ducks for the hemofalcon to pick off.

They have medium armor, so I open with an Arrowstorm from Fero. This disables him but he’s going to be disabled by Mad Swoop anyway so no big deal. From there it’s a slow war of attrition as I slowly wear the bloodhawks down.

Fero eventually finishes them off with another Arrowstorm. From here the battle is a piece of cake. Like the broodmistress, the hemofalcon largely relies on its flunkies to carry the battle – it can’t stand up to a concentrated assault. I can’t exploit any of its weaknesses (it has special armor and I have no mental attacks), but Sirush, Fero, and Qualstio drain its mind meter fast enough regardless.

Desmon gets up and realizes he can finally see what lies beyond the mountain. Qualstio buys a token Good Person Point™ with the line “Go for it. You earned it.”

Unfortunately, Desmon doesn’t like what he sees.

Desmon: “W-what—-!”

He backs away with a nicely deranged-looking walking animation that I sadly couldn’t screencap, then collapses to his knees.

Desmon: “N-n-no! It’s, it’s not fair!”
Dehl: “Desmon?”
Desmon: “This is some mistake! It has to be! No god would allow such… such cruelty!”

Oh, Desmon, can’t let go of that last shred of hope? It’s sad that his gods really are that cruel.

He proceeds to go into full-blown crazy mode:

Desmon: “Ah-heh. Heheh, HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! Of course! It’s all so obvious now! Don’t you see now? It IS a prison! A cage! We’re all being punished! We’re all sinners!”

Hmm, interesting. An avid fantasy reader would probably find this theory plausible – the trope of a world that appears normal but is actually some form a purgatory is fairly common. I wonder if these lines were purposefully designed as a red herring? As I mentioned before with Fell, this is actually pretty clever – the crazy guy’s ravings really are just nonsense and taking them seriously won’t actually get you anywhere. (He does brush up against the truth even so, but he’s barking up the wrong tree.)

Santes asks him what the heck he’s talking about, but he ignores her and walks back to the summit.

Desmon: “My goal still stands! My quest! My future! I must escape! I shall lead our men to freedom! This world before me is my stage! My tower! The genesis of progress, of continued life!”

He jumps. Dehl rushes forward to stop him, but he only succeeds in seeing what Desmon saw. He similarly backs away and collapses to his knees. The guild asks him what he saw before advancing to see for themselves. The camera pans up, and…

Oh don’t be such a downer, Dehl, you should know there’s plenty of life in the ocean.

When I first played I wondered if there was a special objective for keeping Desmon’s morale high, but, well. Kind of a moot point, isn’t it? I have to wonder where the base favor’s coming from, though, given the following cutscene:

Dehl is really shaken by what happened. Because Qualstio is a sociopath, he assumes that this is because of the revelation and not because the guy they were supposed to help just jumped off a freaking cliff seriously what is wrong with him.

Dehl: “That man trusted us with his life, when he could not trust himself with it. We failed.”

Actually it was more his wife who did the entrusting, but okay.

“The snuffing of that glimmer of hope he sought for this world was trivial, in comparison.”

Dehl you are too good a person to hang out with a sociopath like Qualstio. Run awaaaaaay! D:

Qualstio: “Yeaaah, about that. There’s a rumor that the Guard is planning a formal investigation.”
Dehl: “As the original signer, I shall bear full blame and the repercussions for our incompetence.”
Qualstio: “Like hell you will! We’re gonna get the hell out of Nal before our situation gets any worse.”

Well, if they weren’t already in trouble they’re going to be now. This is just going to look extra shady to any investigators.

Dehl turns to him and asks why they’re running from facing responsibility. Qualstio tells him not to worry about it because “If anything, it’d be a fine and a slap on the wrist anyway.” Dehl is baffled, seeing how they were a direct cause of his death; Qualstio just dismisses it by saying people die all the time in Nal, and under more suspicious circumstances at that. This still sounds really sketchy to me.

Dehl turns to talk to Tehgonan, but is cut off.

Tehgonan: “What, you afraid my fragile little mind is warped for life after seeing the guy jump? Tsh, you ain’t gonna make me break down THAT easy! You got it?” Don’t worry, Tehgonan, we all know your mind was warped long before now.

Qualstio proposes that they flee to Fortifel rather than Wadassia – he has an “old friend” there who he claims will give them free room and board. Qualstio sure is well-prepared for what to do in the event the law catches up to him, isn’t he?

“The guy is LOADED. Huge house, personal servants, well-respected in the community.”

Wait wait back up a minute there. I thought Fortifel hates Metzino? At the very least, the “community” is pretty ambivalent towards him as far as I can remember, and the council definitely hates his guts. If they’re running from one authority, it doesn’t seem smart to make enemies of another.

Dehl points out that Qualstio said he didn’t want to go back to Fortifel ever again. He says his infamy won’t be much trouble as long as we keep a low profile haha like the guild is even capable of doing that.

Regardless, Tehgonan is excited about Fortifel. “I’ve been reading up on it.” THE END TIMES ARE NEAR

Dehl asks if he’s prepared to talk to his parents yet, but once again Tehgonan dismisses it and says he’ll make Ques write a note or something.

Suddenly, Fain barges in.

Fain: “You needn’t apologize. Desmon… never intended to return to Nal. I’m sorry. I understood, and I allowed him to pursue his wishes. It was my fault. Everything’s my fault.”
Dehl: “There is no fault to place, if what you say is true. He controlled his own fate.”
Fain: “The night before he left, he wrote a note, apologizing for having to leave me behind. His words were so hopeful, so sincere… it was to be a sacrifice, no matter the outcome.”

Wait, what? Why? How? He kept talking about exploring “the land of his children”. How was he supposed to have any children if he abandoned his wife? Why would he need to abandon her in the first place? I don’t really understand what the game is trying to say here.

She says she’ll be okay on her own, and thanks the guild for all they’ve done. Uh…sincere or sarcastic? I imagine she must be at least a little bitter.

She leaves, and Ques makes a service announcement: since the guild is traveling to Fortifel, anyone who wants to return to Wadassia needs to speak up. No one does; the guild’s all in it together, I suppose. Although I have to wonder what Fero, Lani, Santes, and Zargos think of this – Dehl and Qualstio are the only ones we see talking about it.

And that’s the end of chapter 2! On the whole, I think it’s much better than chapter 1 (though it’s still pretty rocky in parts). There’s not a whole lot more in the way of plot – the quests are still just general do-gooding – but there’s more moral nuance and character development. In Wadassia, everything I did was objectively in the right – I was helping the city and saving everyone. It wasn’t so much a power fantasy as a heroic fantasy of doing good things and everyone singing your praises. Here, the story immediately plunges into the reverse, tearing you down by forcing you to involve yourself in shady business that makes you question if what you’re doing is right. The bonus pickups are excellent, too – unlike in Wadassia, they involve really shady things like illegal drugs and, you know, murdering a guy for his lunch. It really instills a good unsettling feeling throughout the whole thing: how far are you willing to go for a little more power?

And most importantly, the heroes fail this time. In Wadassia the heroes had a clear goal and they accomplished it, but here…did they really achieve anything? They stopped the skeleton menace I suppose, but that’s small potatoes compared to all the other crap in Nal. Though Dehl is constantly optimistic that they can help the city the same way they helped Wadassia, the whole thing ends in tragedy and they’re forced to flee as fugitives. It’s a much more sobering tale that brings the story back down to earth after the heights of Wadassia.

There’s still virtually no plot, though. If anything, the quests are even more unrelated than in Wadassia. The tchiitra invasion was a flimsy overarching theme, but it was an overarching theme nonetheless. Nal has…the skeleton menace, I suppose, which is wrapped up in two quests, and the bandit problem, which never really goes anywhere. The final quest is almost entirely unrelated to everything that comes before it, which is fitting but also kind of disappointing.

Though some greater plot elements are introduced, they feel pretty rough and still contain inconsistencies. Dehl’s character seems to have been solidly worked out, but Skint’s seems to still be in progress, and some of the details regarding the scene with Rulian don’t quite match up with later reveals. Qualstio is still an amoral dick, too, despite having a weird moment of shra sympathy that looks out of character when compared to the crap that normally comes out of his mouth.

Plus there’s just some stuff that’s frankly bizarre, like Kidra and Sirush. I mean really, what was the developer even trying to do there? He does attempt to salvage them in their chapter 4 sidequests, but though that works for Kidra, I don’t think it’s enough for Sirush.

I think it would have been pertinent for the developer to go back and polish the story cutscenes here – it needs much less work than chapter 1, but still could have used some adjustments. Sirush and Kidra should have either been massively reworked or cut entirely and replaced with more sensible characters. Making the guard/officer conflict less of a background element could also have helped create a more unified plot, and so could foreshadowing the final quest better. It really comes out of left field, unlike the other four which are amply foreshadowed and/or built up to.

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