Last time on The Reconstruction, Qualstio had a run-in with the council but Metsueno showed up and used his sue powers to save the day.
After the last quest, I FINALLY got enough points for one of Lani’s passives. I chose Inner Strength, since Bloodflow is pretty meh. I used to think regeneration was the best thing ever, but with her slowness it’s actually pretty useless. Increased health (especially in her weaker areas) seems more important.
New people have appeared!
A high-ranking Guard-Shra. One who was deemed smart enough to be given a position of authority over the other laborers.
Wait, are all the guard captains shra? I don’t think we ever see a Fortian captain. Why does Fortifel trust them so much when everywhere else thinks they’re savage beasts? And why is there no communication about this? There should be at least some Fortians campaigning about the virtues of an expanded shra workforce – even ignoring ethicality, you’d think they’d be all over the increased efficiency. The explanation can’t be that they’re just off in their own bubble, they accept converts! They’re the only city we’ve seen with actual immigration policies, they should be more in touch with foreign affairs than anyone else. Maybe they’re just dicks who don’t want to leak the groundbreaking secret of “be nice to people and they won’t kill you in your sleep” but they don’t do anything to hide it either none of this makes any sense.
Come to think of it, Alito said he went to school with Ques, so they’re not even segregating public facilities (or if they are they’re lumping shra in with converts). Honestly, Fortifel seems pretty egalitarian, which is fitting for their cerebral, Vulcanesque attitude towards things except for the part where they’re actually supposed to be selfish and petty. Shra can’t use magic so they obviously can’t achieve the higher positions in Fortian society, but the Fortians don’t seem to be dickish about that when they totally could be.
Something must surely be of interest to draw him out of his comfortable office and into the bitterly cold streets.
He even has a “comfortable office”!
The travel commissioner wants personnel for something, but Perosamo says he doesn’t have any to spare. They eventually notice Zargos and Santes. Zargos wants to know where the road leads, but Perosamo just tells him to go away.
Santes: “Heeeey! You can’t talk to Zargos like that! I oughta bop you right in the snout!”
If I have to read Santes’ dialogue then so do you.
The travel commissioner says, “A-actually, he can—“ which is interesting because it means he actually outranks a native-born Fortian! See, this is what I mean. If Fortifel was actually supposed to be as corrupt and speciesist as everyone else under the surface, the travel commissioner could just strongarm him, but he doesn’t! Persosamo is being pretty rude and snappish, but no one seems to think that’s out of line.
Really, for all the to-do about Do’Ssha being the true egalitarian society, that feels more like a “separate but equal” situation than here. Shra get actual jobs and appreciation in Fortifel; in Do’Ssha people throw money at them but they still appear to be largely segregated into their own groups.
Zargos tells Santes to calm down because she’s a crazy wimmins who needs her cool, reasonable husband to keep her in line. I sincerely hope that when Space Lizard said these two were based on a RL roleplaying couple he meant their characters and not the actual people.
They decide to go down the road anyway, even though it’s blockaded. For some reason Perosamo tells them they’re being stupid instead of letting them leave him alone.
Santes: “Hey! Is that the gaate over there? It looks all chained up! Maaaaaaan, what gives?”
If I have to read Santes’ dialogue then so do you.
Perosamo says they’d get “torn apart” on the trail, to which Zargos replies, “Torn apart, ehh? Somethin’ nasty lurkin’ out there that’ll put yer tail ‘tween yer legs?” …I can’t help but think that’s a racial slur of some kind.
Santes: “Ooh! Ooh! Do we get to bash somethin’? Let’s go let’s go let’s go! I wanna fight!”
Am I the only one who finds all of this creepily infantalizing? Seriously, Santes sounds younger than Tehgonan most of the time.
Also, she’s really violent for a medic. I would be surprised that this contradiction is never brought up, but then I remember that character depth is for people who aren’t Santes.
They proceed to go through the hi-we’re-a-guild routine and Perosamo finally lets the travel commissioner get a word in edgewise. The road leads to Sanctifel, and is normally protected by five guard stations, but travel between the cities is rare so Perosamo decided to withdraw the guards and now the trail has fallen into disrepair. He has not been fired yet how? Perosamo’s entire job description is keeping the cities safe and letting such a vital artery be overrun endangers both of them. Why did no one tell him this was a terrible idea? Why did no one block the order? Why does the travel commissioner not bring this up as leverage? Why does Fortifel make no sense?!
Anyway, apparently they need to deliver a caravan to Sanctifel as part of the next Cleansing Phase, which, wow, way to make it totally not sound like a murder program, Fortifel. The guild is to clear the path and escort the caravan safely. The commissioner also mentions the real reason why Perosamo withdrew the guards: “this past season was bitterly cold, so Perosamo withdrew and closed the road.” WHY DID YOU MAKE THE COLD-BLOODED LIZARDS GUARD YOUR FROZEN DEATH TRAIL. HOW DID YOU NOT FORESEE THIS BEING A PROBLEM.
Huh, already? I thought there was another quest before this one.
High Guard Perosamo: “Six? Our force may be spread thin near the end of our march. Hmmmm…”
The gimmick for this quest is that you have to leave one person behind at each guard post. Why can’t the guild bring along an entourage to replace the departing members? They bring along support characters in a later quest, why not here? I mean yeah gameplay limits, but they should at least bring it up.
He tells his guards “do not interfere with the actions of Ilganyag. Perserve your strength,” which they will obey even if I am on the brink of defeat because potentially tiring out the poor supermen is worse than the entire operation failing I guess. You know what would be cool? If they would occasionally jump in for a small bonus attack, Final Fantasy III-style. Probably wouldn’t be worth the coding effort for one quest, but it’d still be neat.
Travel Commissioner Kitino: “Do not take this lightly. We have but one attempt at establishing the five outposts.”
Except we don’t because Ques will just do his “let’s pretend that didn’t happen” thing and start over. This game is really averse to game overs. The “whoops let’s start over” thing is functionally identical anyway, but for some reason only boss battles are serious business enough to warrant an actual game over screen.
Here’s the first obstacle. You can’t see it here, but these matterfiends are flashing different colors rapidly. Perosamo explains they’re “prismatic”, which means they don’t yet have a set element. But in battle they’re locked into an element anyway so ??? I presume this is just a gameplay abstraction to give them random elements like everything else and I shouldn’t look into it, but if characters are commenting on it then it’s an in-universe thing! Surely Fortians have discovered how matterfiends work by now, but we never hear any explanation for why some take on the elements of their surroundings and some pick at random.
Wonder how Perosamo planned to explain if the outposts were destroyed. How is he not fired yet?
High Guard Perosamo: “Garanto. Get into position.”
Even interchangeable voiceless NPCs get names!
I need to select someone to stay behind. I pick Lani. It’s the smart choice because she’s my least useful combatant, but come on, her whole thing is being a walking guard tower! She’s the perfect fit.
Lani: “Hrrraaaagh! Ain’t nobody gonna get by THIS! C’mon, Shra-friend, let’s get set up here!”
And she’s enthusiastic, of course. I can almost imagine her jumping and waving her hands in the background like she’s the nerdy kid from those silly school cartoons.
The next obstacle is slashlings. “They are extremely territorial, and therefore dangerous.” I thought you said they were cowardly, game. Maybe the wild ones exhibit different behavior than the domesticated.
Characters retain damage on the map, but are healed before every battle. Takes some of the challenge out of it; this is supposed to be an endurance run, after all. Maybe originally there was no healing, but the developer decided it was too hard that way.
The next guard post is occupied.
High Guard Perosamo: “Those are Wracked. Escapees from Sanctifel, lost, and forced to wander the wilds. It seems they have laid claim to our outpost in our absence. This is unacceptable.”
Ques: “I have heard of such, but in all my years I’ve never seen them before. Shall we help them?”
High Guard Perosamo: “These Fellians are beyond help. Their minds have been destroyed by magics forbidden. They must be put out of their misery, as well as our own. Get to it.”
Cold. I know that supposedly rehabilitation methods have been tried and failed, but this is still pretty disturbing. What if the rehabilitation studies are only token efforts put on for show, and the public opinion is that they brought it on themselves for their illegal studies? We’re told Fortifel is supposed to be corrupt, so this is pretty shady. How hard would it be to get an inconvenient individual exported to Sanctifel with no questions asked, or even purposefully sabotage their studies to turn them Wracked? If they still manage to put up a fuss in Sanctifel, stage a prison break and throw them in with the Wracked. Some passing adventuring guild will murder them for the XP, and no one will investigate.
Oh, and my party members have no problem killing these people, of course. Even if the logically understand the Wracked are as sapient as wild animals (assuming that’s true), it’s still pretty disturbing to have to actually kill someone. I’d imagine Dehl at least would freeze up here.
For this outpost, I select Fero. Once again, he seems like a logical choice. “My keen sense of sight shall protect this land. None of ill will shall pass this point.”
These matterfiends are not blocking the path, but for some reason Perosamo gives me the choice to fight them rather than telling me not to waste time. I fight them…
Because of course there’s a reward for it.
Third outpost just has slashlings. Strangely, the party isn’t healed for the battle this time. Wonder if that’s a bug.
I pick Qualstio for this outpost because I want to see what he has to say.
“Ehh, all right, fine. Just don’t take too long. I don’t wanna be stuck here after dark.” That’s kinda boring, I was expecting a more impassioned response. You’re boring, Qualstio.
Matterfiends immediately pop up, naturally. (Perosamo does at least have the grace to berate himself for tempting fate.) These ones are fire-aligned rather than prismatic, which just confuses me more.
Bandits are truly the cockroaches of the adventuring world. How did they get past the everything?
They disappear afterward, which seems to imply death. I thought you were a pacifist, Dehl.
Speaking of, I select Dehl this time. He is a professional guardsman, after all. “Oh, yes, of course. I am quite used to this manner of occupation, you know.” Huh, he seems a bit flustered. Does he actually not like guarding and is resentful that he’s being slotted into that role again? Does it bring back painful memories of Wadassia to return to his old occupation? Or am I reading too much into this?
This time, Perosamo does say I should ignore them and move on, but I still have the option to fight them.
High Guard Perosamo: “Are you mad? You are outnumbered. There is naught to gain from this.”
Oh, but of course there is. After the battle, Perosamo is impressed by my skills and offers a later training regimen (which translates to skill points). For all the game likes to toot its horn about subverting expectations and defying convention, it missed a golden opportunity here: don’t reward players for being bloodthirsty idiots. It would have been clever if I got nothing for this and Perosamo just berated me for jeopardizing the mission.
The last battle is just two slashlings, which is…pretty anticlimactic.
Perosamo updates him on the situation, then tells Ques “I suppose now would be an appropriate time to regather your allies.”
wait
Then what was the point of all that? I thought the whole reason Ilganyag was enlisted was to escort the caravan! They cleared the path, but they need to keep it safe! Perosamo makes it clear that a single guard at each post isn’t enough. If the guild members are just going to abandon their posts five minutes after being deployed what was the point of leaving them behind in the first place???
For some reason the game makes a note of this, even though it didn’t in previous quests. I get the impression the developer was flip-flopping a lot on quest formatting, even this late in the game.
Ques: “Let it be known that Ilganyag of Wadassia has acquired the luckiest rank of all; 13.”
They walk off. Dehl wonders where all the people are, and Qualstio explains that the place is an insane asylum. Sometimes Fortians stumble across some mind-warping magic, so Fortifel needs a place to house them. Dehl is very disturbed by this, seeing the inhabitants as prisoners; Ques says it’s better than tossing them into the wilderness, and they’re allowed to perform simple tasks to occupy themselves. In principle I’m on Ques’ side here, but given the corruption in Fortifel and potential for abuse I mentioned above, I’m skeptical of their treatment. (And The Drop‘s mention of a sedative used to keep them under control is pretty shady.)
Qualstio: “Can’t say there will be a whole lot that we can offer, so we might as well go back.”
Qualstio brings up a good point; there’s no real reason for the guild to visit here. For the debut of the separate-area mechanic, Sanctifel feels like an afterthought. Our next quest is here by pure contrivance, but that’s it. It could be to show how empty the place is, I guess? But it still feels weird that there’s such a big to-do about getting here when the plot stays in Fortifel the entire time. Maybe the developer wanted to make Sanctifel explorable but realized too late that there wasn’t anything plot-relevant he could put in it.