Last time, Metsueno invaded the Council’s tower and the guild decided to investigate. (Lot of images coming up, by the way.)

Something I like is how scattered the characters are. They’re not all in a neat group like normal; they’re in the corners staring in horror at all the chaos. Adds more tension and atmosphere to the scene, I think.

This is the quest gimmick. On every floor, you have to solve a puzzle in order to get the next keystone. The puzzles are actually the main focus; there are only three fights in total.

The shra in the corner is a chef. He says something bad happened in the kitchen and the food “escaped”. If I help him, he’ll give me a keystone.

The slashlings immediately notice me and run off into holes on either side of the room. I need to draw them out. This is accomplished by leaving some of the food items scattered around as bait. I can choose herbs, flour, or meat. Oh boy, time to see what slashling diet is like!

Okay, so they do eat vegetables. Some people said they ate meat way back in the first quest, though – are they normally fed meat even though they can technically eat greens? If so, that’s unimaginably stupid and Fortifel should have starved ages ago.

I lure the other one out as well. Flour doesn’t work, but meat does. So they’re omnivorous. Still raises the question of what they eat in the wild, though, since Fortifel doesn’t seem to have any plantlife (the greens I got here say they were imported) and the only fleshy creatures around are the slashlings themselves. Maybe they eat matterfiends.

This is funny for about two seconds before you remember that they are food. They’re probably fed horrible diets to make them unnaturally fat, too.

With the slashlings dispatched (they disappear even though I didn’t body-kill them…) I get the keystone to the next floor.

The trapped guy is Mikinio, the cold councillord. He doesn’t get a portrait. He gives me the next keystone and tells me to find “Crossar”, who can heal him. Uh, Santes and Dehl are right there…

Yay callbacks.

This floor is flavor text central! I will be inflicting all of it on you.

“The guards told us to stay here until it’s safe to go back down. What happened below?”

…Nobody even recognized them? To be honest I find the premise of this situation a bit ludicrous; Pazatto and Metsueno dueled each other while climbing the tower and moving so quickly that no one could see them? That’s like something out of a bad comic book. I mean obviously Pazatto has a reason to lure Metzino to the roof, but it’s still weird that they rushed through these crowded rooms so easily. Why isn’t this room in shambles like the rest, even? It’s even more crowded and filled with fragile objects than the last floor, yet everything’s in perfect condition.

“I was on the waiting list for two months! And just my luck that something like this happens.”

Unsurprisingly, Fortians are straw bureaucrats.

Yet they’re important enough to put on display? Sure, they’d probably be exotic to tourists, but even still, we don’t put common weeds in national museums. It also doesn’t fit with the utilitarian Fortians in the first place. Everything else in the room has clear importance and purpose; this doesn’t. The flavor text even says they’re usually discarded!

Wonder when they’re going to figure out it’s just iron.

Ah, standardized measurements. See, these make sense for the Fortians to enshrine.

“Hiding”? They’re not hermetic mages, they clearly spend enough time wandering the streets to harass Qualstio. I don’t think the developer thought through the NPC dialogue here very well.

“I thought they were unstoppable scholars of the elements! Now I dunno what to think.”

This actually creates something of a plot hole. The Council’s supposedly concerned about appearances, but this is actually a rather Pyrrhic victory for them. Even if no one realizes they’re responsible, they’re going to look incompetent and weak for not being able to stop this. They only hold their seats because people believe they deserve to hold them – you can’t rule a meritocracy if it turns out you have no merit.

I get the feeling it should be possible to magically remove brands. Does Fortifel just not do it because they’re dicks?

That’s… a bit weird. It’s just one color, and not even the highest. Wouldn’t a multicolored lens make more sense?

Anyway, I’ve kept Mikinio waiting long enough.

Portrait! And he’s a fih’jik. I’d like to know the political circumstances of his appointment. Have there been fih’jik councillords before, or is he a novelty? Was he appointed as a PR stunt to appease the fih’jik convert population? Are the divine councillords usually fih’jik, and this is pigeonholing/pandering? Is there any resentment from non-fih’jik divine casters over that? We will never know.

It really is a shame that international politics are practically nonexistent in this story. The game’s willing to dip its toes into the politics of individual nations, but steadfastly refuses to consider how they might interact. It not only makes the world seem smaller, it also shortcharges the national politics too. Fortifel is supposed to be multicultural, with converts from every part of the globe archipelago – they should be keenly aware of international politics, and strongly affected by them. The international politics should inform the character of the individual nation as well. But it doesn’t, because that would be too complicated.

Sorry, back to the plot. Crossar intended to investigate what was going on (he of course planned to do this by standing in one spot), but he agrees to help Mikinio and gives me his keystone.

The Fortian is a zoologist, which must be an interesting job in Fortifel. One of the duelists broke the matterfiends’ managlass cage, and now the matterfiends are agitated. He’s been trying to keep them penned up, but decides they have to be destroyed for the safety of the visitors. I dunno, they seem content to stay there. The zoologist could probably just call a pacification squad when this is over.

The matterfiends’ thought snippets are cool. They’re each just a single verb (different depending on element), which reflects their alien nature quite well. They don’t have real minds, they just enforce the will of their element in single-minded directives.

Fortian Zoologist: “Despite your combat proficiency, I see no reason to mistrust you.”

A wise choice, RPG bystander. A wise choice indeed.

Fetranto says that his keystone broke in two when the duelists came through. He has one half, but I need to find the other.

Fetranto: “Hurry. This pain is incomprehensible. I am looking forward to unconsciousness.”

I’m sure you’ll be fine, O invincible scholar of the elements. After all,

you

wouldn’t

want

me

to

miss

all

this

beautiful

flavor

text,

would

you?

(Admit it, this is totally what Qualstio would do.)

It’s… neatly on top of a table. On the other end of the room. Because it broke and fell when he was hit. Totally.

He must have broken it beforehand just to blockade the guild, then. He supposedly can’t outright refuse to help them, but if he can manufacture a delay they’ll be none the wiser.

Fetranto: “My beautiful lecture hall… it’s ruined.”

Yes, you see, the “hiding” councillords have public lecture halls. Makes perfect sense.

Fetranto fixes the keystone, then falls unconscious. My, he’s trusting. Qualstio must be at least tempted to kill him right now.

The sixth floor is the forum entrance, but the way forward is barred by a sealed managlass door.

It’s our token female council member! Not that she has any importance, of course, as you can tell from her lack of portrait. On the one hand she’s the only one who survives to The Drop, but on the other hand she goes crazy, so.

“Although I highly doubt you or your little friends are strong enough to [unseal the gate]. So, even if I were to allow you to enter, it would not be until the lock cools and resets. That will likely be at least an hour. There is a waiting area in the hall over there.”

Also she’s kind of a dick. Even moreso than the others, I mean.

Anyway, the help text helpfully goes GEE I WONDER IF THERE’S SOMEONE IN THE TOWER WHO CAN BREAK MANAGLASS GATES and it’s talking about the zoologist, obviously. He’s excited to get in good standing with the Council. Back on the sixth floor, he informs me that managlass is normally indestructible, but has an elemental affinity; if they expose it to the opposite element, the lock will weaken and break. He determines the affinity is mental. Is it randomized? I seem to remember it being heat on a different playthrough. I think you can use party members to break it (so I could use Lani), but instead I return to the previous floor, where it turns out Fetranto conveniently has some bottled lightning I can use. Was this staged, too?

After the door opens, Nitinza is an ungrateful dick: “Well done! I am impressed with your effort. Perhaps a promotion is in order… as soon as suitable punishment is passed for destruction of Six-Council property.” So she gave him false hope just so she could twist the knife, wow.

If I talk to her, Nitinza threatens to kill me if I touch anything. Maybe she isn’t in on the plot? She’s far more hostile than the others.

I can open it without any trouble. Roof access doesn’t need a keystone, apparently.

Wow, that was a long quest. Cutting it here.

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