Last time, plot. Today, more of that.
…But before then, I realize I haven’t done the hunting grounds yet! Do’Ssha’s are pretty small but there’s some neat stuff in them.
First off, the enemies. Because this is an RPG, the wildlife is deadly:
This is a clever take on the idea of animals who display warning colors. Generally prey are the ones that do that though, not predators.
The best thought snippet.
They’re actually pretty pathetic. None of them can do more than single-digit damage to me and their defenses are abysmal. Quite a change from the tough enemies last chapter.
I do like the burrowstings, though. If you look closely you can see them, but they blend in very well. They surprised me on a number of occasions.
“When the wind picks up, the dust it carries can whittle down even the finest blades.”
This is a nice detail, but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) it’s never used as a gameplay element.
“Some of us say it’s from the Violet Moss that grows in the sand, like over here. Everyone else says it’s from the years of bloodshed staining the ground itself. But, so long as you stay clear of the wildlife, you are quite safe this close to Do’Ssha. These sand canyons are closed off, so it’s unlikely any outsiders can get in. Or out.”
Unless cat people bleed purple, I’m going with the moss thing. It’d be nice to get more information on these “years of bloodshed”. The glossary references an assassination and civil war but never any loss of territory or occupation, which would imply the war has been at a standstill for a while.
But hours sitting on the frozen peaks of Fortifel is no problem.
“Of course, it will be frozen solid when the next Unstoppable Night descends upon us.”
As much as I rag on the worldbuilding, the game is good at dropping little tidbits like this. There’s also another NPC who talks about the sa’ansharu.
There are ropes strewn with dried herbs used for cooking inside the jar. It must have been dropped here some time ago. We can either take these back to our home for cooking to gain health essence, or give them to a public kitchen for piety essence.
This kind of reminds me of the treasure chests from Heroes of Might and Magic. I decide to be nice and donate them.
This is the only pickup, unfortunately. The area is quite small. Now, onwards!
The next scene opens with this, which baffles me. She just risked her life for the guild and planned their next move for them, but her brother got pissy about it so now she’s just going to give up? My best guess is that this is just going through the motions of the aloof mercurial spy archetype, who is supposed to maintain narrative tension by never getting too invested in the heroes, thus keeping them on their toes with the implication she could withdraw her aid at any time. It fails here because we know too much about her, and that information conflicts with the cliches: she’s desperate, highly invested in this issue, and we’ve had no indication she has any other option. She should be deeply invested here and unable to hide it, not playing the coy spy.
They tell her to sneak them into Kir’Ssha and she agrees, though she dismisses Dehl’s idealistic hope that care packages will be enough to avert the conflict. Everyone points out how dangerous this is for her but she agrees to risk her life anyway because of their “enthusiasm”. That sounds nonsensical so I’m going to assume the previous paragraph is correct and she’s actually desperately pinning her hopes on this but doesn’t want to show it.
We learn the guild is on a time limit.
Ques: “Then, let us be off. We MUST return to Do’Ssha before the Unstoppable Night.”
Dehl: “How much time does that leave us?”
Syri: “Enough to get in, wipe your feet, and then come home. Let’s not waste any more.”
This is really stupid.
Not the concept itself – I get that the Night has to be shown off and this builds tension – but when combined with this specific plot beat, it becomes incredibly moronic of them to purposefully mount such a risky mission when they know they won’t have time to accomplish anything meaningful. Unless Syri is planning to burn it to the ground the moment they arrive or they are planning to stay there overnight, the whole mission is doomed from the start. They know the army is coming and that the invasion will likely begin in earnest after the Night. The characters do not have time to do their standard routine of passively getting in touch with all the cultures of the area and maybe formulating some high-minded theoretical solution afterward. Syri should not be willing to risk her life for this unless she has plans for immediate action, yet she leaves the guild to their own devices (read: to accomplish absolutely nothing). The developer just didn’t seem to make an earnest attempt to switch gears to the high-stakes, fast-paced war narrative; the plot continues to plod along slowly and halfheartedly.
While an episode in Kir’Ssha is effective and makes sense on a number of levels, this just isn’t set up properly. It feels like the developer decided on the trip to Kir’Ssha first, and awkwardly threw together a reason afterward. I’m not entirely certain how I would do it, myself; there’s just such a high risk and low chance of reward that the move seems pointless from a tactical perspective. Syri needs to believe they can make a real impact, either through a better plan or a longer timeframe. I keep harping on this, but better pacing and focus to give the plot more time to develop could have worked. If Dehl and Syri had a longer discussion/brainstorming period that allowed him to come up with a better plan and/or if this occurred earlier in the plot to allow more time in Kir’Ssha, Syri’s reasoning would strain my suspension of disbelief less. Dehl having a contingency plan would help – say he plans to address the famine issue first, but when Syri inevitably turns out to be right and the religious motive proves too overpowering, he does a speech or protest or something as a second quest before retreating to Do’Ssha.
We fade to black, but Yfus gets in one last quip.
Yfus: (“She and Ques are certainly ripped from the same cloth. Yeesh.”)
How dare people be focused and organized instead of letting everyone faff about like morons all the time! How dare! She’s such a frigid bossy jerk.
What is up with everyone nastily sniping at each other all the time in this game, seriously? I don’t even get why this is here. Is this, like, subconscious/meta frustration at the competing plot structures that I just talked about? A failed attempt at injecting levity into this darker storyline? I don’t even.
Syri says she’s going back to Do’Ssha, then immediately says she’s going to “keep watch” over the group. I’m not even going to try making sense of that.
Syri: “And, Seku? Try to stay alive until then.”
Ques: “You be careful too, Syri. We are the last of our kind, after all. Stay alive out there.”
I get that it’s clever ironic foreshadowing and all, but right now it’s just annoying me by reminding me how the boy lives and the girl dies, as is custom. Ques’ platitude also comes off as incredibly insincere after his previous scathing indictment of the murder spies and no indication that he had any reason to change his stance in the interim.
All the fih’jik sans Yfus refuse to step inside the city for various reasons. Why did they come at all, then? Dehl should have worked this out with them earlier and allowed people to stay behind. Limiting the party for story reasons would also have been a nice gimmick, as I said way back in chapter 2 with the slave capture quest.
Fero then reveals he’s Kir’Sshan, which completely loses its impact because it was already revealed in an earlier flavor text. Perhaps the developer assumed you wouldn’t return to previous areas (or do his sidequest) until after this?
Yfus: “Your family still lives here?”
Fero: “If one could call it ‘living’, then, yes, friend. I desire nothing except to see Kir’Ssha burn.”
Wow, that’s pretty harsh. What happened to disillusion him so strongly? What did his family do to deserve such retribution? We will never know even though this is incredibly relevant to the plot, because Fero is a minor character. Can you tell what a strong ensemble piece this is?
Regardless, Kir’Ssha is an explorable area, which means it’s that time again!!!!!!!!
So it has been two years? Odd that the second passed with so much less fanfare than the first.
I guess this is some kind of two extremes start looking like each other commentary? I suppose it is true; both groups cling to regressive beliefs and rigidly enforce a status quo despite having different motivations.
…Is this entirely focused on how she inconveniences others rather than on her own state of being, or am I just taking the worst reading possible here?
Hmm. Once again, I think the story would be stronger if he didn’t have the amnesia excuse and was purposefully withholding information.
Oh hey, examinable NPC! This is the only one though.
And the neurotic dictator state doesn’t notice this.
This is interesting, and foreshadowing for the sci-fi twist. Like the Holyland, this kind of bizarre, fantastic set piece is a good addition, as is the resultant mystery and bafflement from characters and readers both.
Screw you, game.
…So what, he’s visited before? Why didn’t he bring that up while everyone was strategizing? Irresponsible.
One of Santes’ few sympathetic moments.
They know Zaka, though. I figure they’d recognize his family, especially since Yfus must have had a fairly important position if Zaka does too. This could have been foreshadowing, actually; have him be incredibly neurotic about staying out of sight, perhaps even marring his beautiful sparkly armor (which I imagine would stand out even if his face doesn’t). Everyone is briefly weirded out before shrugging and moving on, since Yfus is disliked by the group and no one cares about his personal affairs. (As a bonus, this apathy would further foreshadow his The Drop characterization.)
There are also the people hiding outside, of course. I imagine this would actually be more dangerous and suspicious, unless Kir’Ssha doesn’t bother patrolling just outside this slum?
Eh, would people really recognize him, though? A big part of being an assassin is not letting people know your identity. He should be fine, though I can understand if he has the same visceral aversion as Lani.
All the pictures have made this really long, so I’m going to cut this short. The next update will come faster than usual to make up for it.