Enough odds and ends. Time to get the ball rolling.

Qualstio recognizes Pazatto as the mental councillord and is understandably nervous, but Pazatto is friendly enough and just wants to request a job from the guild. He says it’s the “Month of Emergence”, where snow starts to melt and leave frozen mana chunks behind. Why can they only gather them now? Shouldn’t they be crushed to powder from people stepping on the snow all winter, anyway?

“I shall require the assistance of ALL of your guild members!”
[…]
Qualstio: “Uhh, but, don’t kids normally run around and pick up those things? We’re a bit old for that.”
Pazatto: “Nonsense, nonsense! Everyone knows the best pieces are in the most dangerous spots! You’re not afraid of… a little danger, are you, Sicious?”
[…]
“Only the largest unbroken pieces will do.”
[…]
“If your entire guild helps, you’ll have them in no time! But, there’s no need to rush, after all.”
[…]
Qualstio: “Are you gonna come supervise us?”
Pazatto: “Not necessary! You aren’t children, after all.”

For a crazy psychopath Pazatto is scarily good at this. I suppose it makes sense that the mental councillord would know the best tactics for psychological manipulation. Qualstio notices something’s up, but Pazatto deflects his concerns so deftly and even uses his own logic against him. And he’s being so nice and reasonable when Fetranto was baying for blood earlier, so of course Qualstio shouldn’t press him too much in case he rescinds that benevolence. This exchange is probably the best-written part of the chapter. Completely in-character for Qualstio, seemingly innocent but just slightly off, and absolutely redolent with irony on a replay. This is how you do foreshadowing.

Pity it doesn’t fit with Pazatto’s later characterization. He seems way too unstable for this kind of careful, meticulous planning and perfect delivery.

This is a nice, lighthearted breather quest after the intensity of the previous ones. You don’t even have to do any combat.

And there’s a neat surprise too: support characters show up, each with unique flavor text!

Falitza what are you even trying to say.

Why is he right up against the snow bank, then? Wouldn’t it be warmer toward the center? It is possible to get here without walking on any snow, so that at least checks out.

(Kidra and Lani don’t show up, which is a shame. Or maybe it’s only supporting characters that show up and I forgot to attach them?)

It’s a pity this wasn’t done more often, it’s a nice touch. It’s especially nice to see the thoughts of characters who don’t feature much in the main storyline.

Some of the snow tiling here is weird. Like, it looks like the snow is going into the rock face here, implying a secret path, but… there’s nothing. It’s just as solid as everything else. Maybe the developer was trying to imply something that isn’t well-suited to the format, like tiny snow-filled cavities in the rock?

This area is to the northeast. The nearby Fortian explains that the tower is very old, “as all towers not for defense were banned in FY2850.” I, uh, what? Why would you do that? The Fortian implies it was some kind of stupid vanity/pride thing and the Council didn’t want anyone to build a tower more magnificent than theirs, in which case wow, they’re dumb. Towers are useful for conserving space, which would be especially important in Fortifel, where living space seems highly limited. This society has not imploded yet how?

The tower itself is quite strange. It only appears in this one throwaway quest and isn’t mentioned ever again. Maybe it’ll show up in How Far as the site of the final emitter or something. Or maybe it’s just window dressing, who knows?

Ques: “We’ve reached Rank 15. Though my time is waning, I congratulate you nonetheless.”

I have to wonder how far Ques’ rank ups go. I remember playing on hard mode and getting to a point where Ques lampshades the fact that he’s still around; must have been 16 or 17. Is there a hard cap you can’t pass until you get Alito? (That also raises the question of how far back Alito’s rank up messages go; I believe quest progression in Fortifel is wholly flag-based instead of rank-based, so you could theoretically get him at whatever the minimum needed to complete Nal is.)

After the quest there’s some banter where Qualstio’s nervous about screwing up such an easy task. The others eventually convince him to meet Pazatto, but they find Fell instead. Dehl is not pleased to see her this time, understandably.

Qualstio: “Aww, not you again! Why is it something bad happens whenever you show up?”

Uh, what? Something very good happened when she showed up the first time, it was only last time that she screwed you over. Try to keep up!

Dehl grills her about Desmon (and also calls her by name even though she never told him, PLOT HOLE). Fell just spouts an evasive non-answer: “Words of the Watcher of the Future, yes. Knowledge; not necessarily. It is all scope.” The most charitable explanation I can think of is that Donz said he was in danger of killing himself, and Fell interpreted that to mean the guild might be able to change that outcome. She doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it though, and her ramblings beforehand implied that Desmon’s death was part of the lesson. She’s just trying to weasel her way out of responsibility, I think.

Fell: “Mmm, your reception and acceptance is noteworthy. Faster than previous attempts.”

…Hm.

During Fell’s previous appearance, someone in the comments likened some of her speech to video game metaphors. This line – specifically the word choice of “attempts” – gives me that impression as well. From her perspective, she is a player and the people of the world are her game pieces. She’s bashed her head against the same wall thousands of times trying to reach her goal and learned from her mistakes every time – just like in a choose-your-own-adventure novel or an adventure game. She believes the correct path is set in stone – a linear game – and she just has to try every permutation until she can stumble on it. She’s a trial-and-error player. Given that The Reconstruction is at least trying to play with conventions of the genre, plus the fact that Fell has shown some fourth-wall-breaking weirdness, I’m inclined to think this interpretation is plausible. It certainly makes a lot of her bizarre speeches make more sense.

Could all the Watchers be metaphors for gameplay styles, I wonder? Their personalities aren’t as well-defined and half of them have explicitly given up, so it’s hard to tell. If we want to stare into this abyss, I suppose Donz could be likened to a strategy guide, Nath is a laidback player who’s willing to just take things as they come, and Kott has become frustrated by the difficulty and given up? And of course Fell is the humorless, hardcore player who just wants to win.

…Anyway. Fell says it’s time for another lesson. Dehl is leery, but Fell just tells him to suck it up and deal, no gain without pain. Qualstio asks how she knows where they are all the time and she tells them about the Watchers. For some reason he’s confused by this even though it’s the most straightforward thing she’s ever said, but doesn’t press further.

Fell: “The Reptilian with whom you are acquainted. I believe he longs for a familiar face today.”

Ah, there it is! I remember a developer blog post a while back teasing about shra being called “reptilians” in this game. Why this, though? Why not “lacertian”? Did EROS not even tell her the names of the species she had to examine? Does she call humans and fih’jik “mammalians”? Perhaps lacertians were going to be called reptilians originally, but the developer decided that was too boring and made it more sci-fi-y.

The group understands her meaning regardless; she’s obviously talking about Alito. They ask if something’s happened to him and she just trolls them with vague ominous portents before walking off because she’s a dick. The group debates what to do and Dehl says they may as well try because she’s never explicitly lied to them before. But… you can still deceive people with technical truths, as they well know from last time. Going along with it could very well be another trap, even if Alito is in trouble. Regardless, I can see why they’d be concerned in spite of all that. It’d be pretty cold of them to just ignore a potential threat to Alito’s safety.

The next day, Alito’s hanging out in the middle of the square with a quest icon over his head. He says Metsueno left for Faithall Tower earlier, and hasn’t come back. Ques immediately goes, well, crap.

I know the pan can’t start at the top for reasons, but it feels kind of weird to fade in to the middle section of the tower like this. I suppose it seems taller and more imposing if even the camera can’t see the top, but it’s still weird.

There are periodic lightning flashes to amp up the drama. It’s a thundersnow storm!

Dehl and Santes immediately help the injured shra. The rest of the guild comes to the obvious conclusion that Metsueno went on a rampage, but Qualstio’s in denial.

Qualstio: “We should just go.”
[…]
“No! No. Not goin’ inside. Leave the guards to sort it out. It’s probably nothin’.”

After two chapters of Qualstio being a haughty, snarky jerk, it’s immensely satisfying to see him showing weakness for a change. He’s clearly terrified of the Council and everything related to them.

Kuranio rushes out suddenly, and Dehl interrogates him. Kuranio starts babbling about how he was only following orders, and Dehl finally realizes he may have been wrong to rail at Skint earlier. Turns out Kuranio was ordered to spy on the guilds and prevent them from interfering with his employer’s plans, though he doesn’t know the full picture as he never met his employer in person. He’s a pretty crappy agent if Pazatto needed to distract Ilganyag personally. Maybe he dealt with the Blue Guard.

Kuranio: “He wrote the ‘path was finally clear.'”

I wonder, does this implicate Pazatto or Metsueno? Pazatto’s definitely the crazier one, but Metsueno’s just crazy enough to say something like that. Metsueno shouldn’t need an agent, though; he could distract Ilganyag just by asking them politely, like Pazatto did. I presume it’s Pazatto, then. It’d have been more clever if Metsueno did betray them, and would also fit better with Fell saying this is supposed to teach them something.

There’s a blue flash and the screen shakes. Everyone’s all ?!?!, and Qualstio finally decides he has to get over his fear and help Metsueno. Yay.

They will… next time.

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