Part 26: Let it not be said that Granas is without mercy

MUSIC: Silence

We've once again lifted a terrible curse. Somehow, I don't feel as victorious this time around. Let's see how the villagers are doing.



Villager: Then she smiled and said "I'm going to make these flowers bloom." She had such a sweet smile on her face.

How can such a sweet and innocent girl meet with such a tragic fate?



Villager: All she wanted was to grow flowers... She never, ever did anything evil!

What was Aira's idea? What was it she was hoping for...? You know the answer to that, yes?

Villager: Aira's idea... her wish... was for all of the villagers to be friends and live happily together. It was our wish, too, once...

Villager: And despite all that, this terrible fate fell only upon Aira! I wonder if the rest of us even deserve happiness now...

Dammit! Why do you give up so easily?! You've got no good reason to! You think such resignation would make Aira happy?!

Toward what end... for what good reason... did that poor girl forfeit her soul!?

Villager: Will we ever be happy? In this ill-fated village of ours... with soil too poor for growing flowers...?


god dammit



I would like to hope so.

All of these people have been suffering so. Now, at least they find happiness in their dreams...

Old Woman: Ohh... Poor little Aira. If we could do it all over, we wouldn't do all those bad things...

Lamenting misfortune will not bring about happiness.

Old Woman: Of course. You're right. Our task is to become happy again. We'll do it... We must.


I suppose there's hope for them yet. Might as well leave on a high note! ...hey, does anyone feel like we're forgetting about someone?



Oh. Of course.

I shall put that mother and daughter before the Inquisition!

Why? Haven't the people who fell ill recovered? Shouldn't you be diving back into your crypt and gnawing at bones by now?

Ryudo is right, High Priestess Selene. The girl cannot see, nor can she hear. She is harmless. Please, just leave her alone.

Hold your tongue, Songstress. Those tainted by Valmar must be dealt with accordingly.

In the name of Granas, all that is evil and corruptible must be purified!

...



Is it "righteous" to string up a grieving mother!!?

Ryudo... you do seem to WANT to protect them.

Some would find your words to be heretical. You have no issue with this?

High Priestess Selene, surely you would not...!?



The thread's been saying this for months now, but I'm going to echo it one more time: Ryudo is the best protagonist.

Ah... High Priestess Selene, do not worry about us.

Everything has been resolved. Let's not argue any more... Please... Please let us get back to our lives.

We were suffering but that was no reason for our cruel treatment of Sandra and Aira. Please... forgive us.

Villager: Please... forgive us, Priestess...

... I remain reluctant, yet let it not be said that Granas is without mercy. So be it.

However, Elena. You seem to be lacking in piety for a follower of Granas... for a Songstress.

This I shall report to His Holiness Zera.

Selene and her knights leave the village.





Please do not worry about it. We... We really have not done anything ourselves. We were unable to help...

But at least you tried. I didn't even try to do anything...


We're now free to leave Mirumu and begin the final leg of our journey to Granas Cathedral. First, however, let's take a look at the drops from the Eye battle.

The Demon's Tears are an accessory that increases the length of a character's Combo from 2 to 3, effectively increasing its damage by 50%. It's marvelous.
The Warp Knife is a new weapon for Roan that lets him teleport instead of run to the enemy when using normal attacks. He's not exactly our best physical attacker, but it's a really neat effect.
Finally, the Gravity Egg is a new mana egg with a large variety of spells on it. Unfortunately, this means its magic is spread too thin. It knows Alhealer, but not the Crackle line, so it's a bad support egg - it knows the Burn! line, but skips over the all-important Burnstrike and due to insufficient elemental chants, the BOOM! line is no replacement. Thus, it's also a bad egg for an offensive caster. As irony would have it, it doesn't even know Gravity.

It does have two new Forest spells on it, though. I'll talk about those later in the update, when they become relevant. For now, I put the egg on Mareg for safekeeping. Let's check on Irina.



I'll never forget what Aira said in my dream. "If we stay here forever, we won't suffer." She was such a kind girl...

Oh, I am sorry! Will you be staying here tonight? Please make yourselves at home. I'll cook up something extra special for you all!

We will, but let's talk to Nicolas first.

I'm starving, but Mom still hasn't made anything.

Ha! You just get better and you wake to an empty stomach?! Ouch, you've got it rough, kid.

Do not listen to him. It is very common to be hungry when you recover from an illness.

Well... that's true.

Alright, let's eat.







The buildings in this village all have such strange shapes. I wonder what they are?

Shells, I guess. Wherever I see. Eh? Elena?

Um, they lived in the ocean, right? That is what I remember reading... If so, then why is this village in the forest now?

The buildings of this village... they're all built of stone since no good building lumber can be found here.

But the stone is very old. Perhaps it is from long before the Granacliffs were created.

Huh? Does that have anything to do with the shells that appear on the buildings of this village?



So this place rose up from the bottom of the sea when the Granacliffs were formed... How interesting...

Maybe those with nowhere to go after the Granacliffs formed settled here. The scars of a battle long past curse us all, even now.

I do not know much of religion, thus I do not know a great deal about this Battle of Good and Evil, but its curse remains.

Yes, there are many people who are still now suffering from the Battle of Good and Evil... That is certainly so.

To face one's past is good, but to focus too heavily on it distracts you from what is most important... the present.

To keep a positive outlook on life is much more useful than to constantly dwell on the past.

I wonder if the people living in Mirumu Village know much about their past? It must have been a constant hardship.



I agree. While facing your past may be important, it is much more critical to cultivate the present.

Even if the Battle of Good and Evil itself is detestable, it did happen and we are here regardless...

Certainly, there is no point in turning your back on the facts.

I do not know much about the Battle of Good and Evil as you do... It is not part of my culture.

Sorry if I misled you, Roan. I did not mean for you to take what I was trying to say in the wrong light.

No! Not at all, Mr. Mareg. I shall think carefully about what you have said...



I want the villagers here to work hard. To work hard and discover true happiness...

The ancestors of this village must have suffered a great deal...

I just wish they would do something about these painful chairs...

being a beastman is suffering



Irina has one last thing to say if we talk to her again -

I won't go immediately, but I too would like to spend some time with Sandra, talking things over.

Please come back any time you have trouble. And please, rest easy tonight.

- but that's about it for Mirumu. We can finally begin crossing the St. Heim mountains. Our goal is within sight!



...no. NO. NOT AGAIN NOT AGAIN



Just kidding. That one's not even a crash - I'm not sure if I'd even call it a bug. Whenever an area with multiple parts (such as the Black Forest or the Baked Plains) shows up on the world map, it keeps the number or name of a sub-area for some reason (Black Forest 1, Baked Plains 3). In this case, it kept "St. Heim Mountains, Halfway Up," but it got cut off at a strangely appropriate point. Hopefully this is the last we see of HA-SATAN, the Adversary. Let's get to climbing.





There's a short segment of forest path before we hit the base of the mountains, featuring a save point and a Guard Mushroom. This is the second in a series of mushrooms that increase stats in a small area around whoever they're used on (the first being the Muscle Mushroom we found a while ago) - this one gives +2 DEF, but we're mostly interested in the MOV ones.



We soon reach a cave. This is, what, the fourth or fifth one so far? I'm not even giving the game the satisfaction of screenshotting it. There's an exit from the cave very close to this entrance.



It leads to another one of those permanent stat boost seeds, always a good find. The enemies in this area are more Big Foots, which I am a hair's breadth away from oneshotting with Burnstrike.

Come, o cleansing flame, to purify!



If I recall correctly, this one did about 1700 damage. Feels good.



Back in the stupid cave, we meet King Asshole of Boner Mountain, the Chameleon.

Chameleon
Difficulty:

HP: 2800 (from 780)
Attack: ~650
Special: as well as -1 to a random stat on hit
Weak to

That is a generously statted monster. 650 damage! That's about as much as the eyeballs were doing with their combo ability! You might feel safe thinking you can simply stack Runner and dodge all of their attacks, but they don't come alone - they're friends with Hammerheads, and if there's one thing Hammerheads love to do, it's vomit Paralysis over like three people every turn. Resistance to Paralysis is abundantly available... in the next town.

Once they inevitably get a chomp off on a paralyzed character, they're probably going to give them the Plague. Plague is The Worst Status Effect. It completely tanks your ACT - it's gotta be a 50-75% reduction in speed on the IP bar - and every 20 seconds or so, it inflicts a random extra status effect on you. This can be something as benign as -1 DEF... or it can be Paralysis. I'm surprised it doesn't occasionally give you double plague. Want to cure it? I hope you've learned Halvah on your shiny new mana egg, otherwise you're in for a trip back to the save point.

Chameleons are still vulnerable to Sleep and we can even use our new spell Craze to confuse them, so they're pretty manageable, but I have to respect a monster that has so much sheer hatred for the player.



Taking another exit out of the cave leads to this path behind the waterfall. The cave entrance behind the waterfall leads to a small area with gold and a healing item - this area contains yet another cave exit, which leads to a chest containing some armor.

I don't like caves.





Please post about the benefits of pitching your tent in a cave. I want to know them.





Those of you who were wondering why they did not actually discuss the horrifying events of Mirumu last meal will be happy to know that they saved that topic for this chat, which is unskippable.

I cannot accept Selene's ways... But what else could be done? Could something else have been done?

The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

None can find fault with Sandra. Her actions were those of a dutiful parent.

No one could blame Aira for what she did... She was just doing what she thought was right.

As a Sister of Granas, I wonder what I really should have done...

I think we should be happy that the whole village was not burned down...

The village was most fortunate to have escaped destruction.



... Don't you see? Millenia is Valmar, right!? Does she not steal souls and do evil deeds?

I'll give you that. She does seem sort of... dangerous somehow, I guess.

I still do not understand. Is she really the Wings of Valmar?

Millenia is but a child, yet unacquainted with the world.

Miss Millenia, still a child...? You think so? I think of her as quite an adult...

I know not the nature of this Valmar. Even so, Millenia's SMELL differs from that of the damnable fiend, Melfice.

I still don't know. I figure the incarnation of pure evil would be a little less... giggly, I suppose.



Just thinking of her presence... inside me... makes me ill at ease.

We must ask ourselves, what is Millenia's purpose? What motives has she? But I speak of riddles...

C'mon, we've yapped enough for tonight.

Alright, game. You win. I ended this update in a cave. I hope you're happy.

Official Art: A mural depicting the Battle of Good and Evil