Last time, Metsueno gloated about his plan to take over the world and Skint made an appearance.
We’re going straight to another cutscene! This one is a direct consequence of the previous quest. Dehl starts dreaming, or possibly just flashbacking.
This takes place on an Unmapped Island – About 50 years ago. There’s a very nicely-animated sequence of baby Dehl scraping the stick with the knife, then someone walks over.
He sees the knife and flips out. Dehl just innocently babbles about how he’s been using it to scrape the bark off this stick and maybe it could be useful for other things! (He also identifies it as metal, which I find odd – would they have any on the island?) Father Sikohlon proceeds to traumatize Dehl by telling him it’s a weapon, at which point Dehl has a breakdown because weapons are bad things and he’s so sorry!
Father Sikohlon: “What if you harmed someone with it? What if it happened to one of your brothers? What if you hurt me? Would you want that?”
Oh you magnificent hypocrite, you.
He monologues some more about how they’re going to live among humans and have to be model citizens teaching the Sikohlon way.
Father Sikohlon: “Only we can end the plague of violence. And end it we shall, no matter the cost.”
Hm. Substitute “magic” for “violence”, and that could be one of Metsueno’s lines. Intentional parallel and criticism of Metsueno’s character, or coincidence?
Also, how in the world was this guy chosen to be a father? Maybe the craziness only set in recently, but Mahk never kept tabs on anyone to make sure they didn’t go nuts, really? Mahk’s presence in general in pretty weird; you generally only appoint successors if you’re not going to be around to do the job yourself. But Mahk’s alive and well enough to raise his own clutch, so why would he need to delegate to this loony?
He tells Dehl to give him the knife so he can “destroy” it. I guess that explains where he got all those knives, but I still have to wonder how many swords and manacles wash up on the island. Does he secretly go to the mainland to purchase stuff?
Dehl wakes up and that’s the end. Back to gameplay. I forgot to upgrade characters last time so I have a ton of points. I upgrade everyone’s passives; Qualstio gets a minor bonus to his healing skill (meh), Sirush gets an increased chance to inflict status effects, and Lani gets +1 body regeneration.
And I realized I forgot to upgrade Falitza, too! She was at her crappy starting stats the whole quest. Wow, her defenses are the pits. I get her passives. I’m pretty sure “Depth” is the only way to improve Procure Status’ success chance, which sucks. It still fails far too often (“too often” being “ever”).
Wild Blue is pretty lackluster to start with but provides pretty substantial stat boosts (including agility increases) later on. And it’s good that its principal stat is stamina because she really, really needs that.
Ehh. This feels skeevy to me, like there’s some kind of Victorian sense of beauty in her craziness. It’s probably because her character archetype is geared towards that, whether or not the developer had it in mind when creating her.
Why is she even there, come to think of it? She should be staying out of sight in case someone recognizes her. And why is she so nostalgic for her home when she supposedly hates the place? Falitza is a constant enigma for reasons the developer never intended.
Oh and I have Brenetto’s stuff now, so I talk to him and get a “Fortian glowring”, further advancing my chain retention to 75%.
There’s actually another quest in Sanctifel. I like the opening scene because it’s got Fero and Fero is great, but I won’t be doing it. For one, it’s filler, but also…
Fortian Emissary: “Since you are Fortian, I know you have studied the Wracked to some degree, yes?”
I think you can tell where this is going.
Fero: “So, these ‘Wracked’ creatures require some sort of culling to protect the town?”
Ques: “They are not creatures. They are fallen Fortians, too unstable even for Sanctifel. They wander the mountainsides, unaware of their actions or even their own well-being.”
Fero: “They are unpredictable, and non-sentient? I would still consider them as ‘creatures,’ then.”
Woah Fero no he did not say they were non-sentient, just that they were unaware of their actions. Hallucinating, delusional people can still feel pain and suffering even if they aren’t aware of most things.
The emissary repeats what the guard captain told us earlier about how rehabilitation efforts all failed so it’s totes okay to brutally murder them. I’m still suspicious.
Fero: “State your mark and your manner, and I shall bring them in with all haste.”
Fero no these are people :(
Fortian Emissary: “…do not pity nor attempt reasoning with them. The only contact they know is with the blade.”
…
So yeah, I’m not murdering crazy people just because someone told me it’s okay. At least the game is jumping through hoops to assure the player they shouldn’t feel bad, but doesn’t that just make it worse? The game recognizes the inherent issues with mowing down mooks, but instead of actually addressing the problem it handwaves it away: go on, you can continue your mass murder, now guilt-free! It’s related to what I said earlier in “To Sanctifel” – a truly subversive work would challenge the audience to really examine how they interact with the medium and dissect the tropes that have become so ubiquitous as to be invisible. This is just a patch job – drawing attention to the issue for five seconds before hastily sweeping it under the rug, because we don’t want anything to get in the way of that sweet murdery adrenaline rush now do we?
Man. Undertale has ruined RPGs for me.