Part 31: Clean Slate Part 5: The Last Nightmare.

Clean Slate Part 5: The Last Nightmare.


Still in the ruined elven capitol, Arius and co. come upon the ruins of the elven palace and... Arius starts to have a breakdown. Despite his friends assuring him otherwise, he says all this destruction is his fault. He starts saying things like most people don't actually believe that Arius isn't at fault even if they say that.

Everyone just wants him to help them, so they tell him what he wants to hear, so he won't doubt himself.




He can't take it anymore and begins to wish he'd never regained his memories of Lysander's life, and lived in Guardia forever.

He friends keep trying to calm him down but then he starts going on about how it's easy for them to say the things they do, they haven't committed genocide and aren't the result of some kind of bizarre magical event. They're -real- people and he's nothing more than an accident.

This upsets Turnus so much he hits Arius, who passes out. He's actually shocked he KO'd Arius so easily because he didn't even hit him so hard, but the others say they think something else is going on.



This is the last nightmare, and it's a doozy. Arius dreams of Marcus Gallius knighting Lysander...



Lysander's father is very proud, saying Lysander will 'flood the land with the blood of Gallia's enemies', but his mother, Vera, and sister, Molly, are both worried about Lysander taking this path.



Warrick De Cafer's there too.



Arius appears and rejects the scene before him, saying just because he remembers these things doesn't mean he believes in those ideas. He has his own life.


Arius begins to summarise his life... starting with Lysanders shipwreck and waking up as a complete blank.
Looking back on being found and taken back to Guardia, Arius ponders it was strange he'd so quickly and passionately been taken with the beliefs of the people of Guardia... almost like something long buried had been revived.

The next part of the dream is a memory of Lysander as a child being told by his father he's to become a knight of Gallia and slay all its enemies. Lysander asks 'Isn't killing bad?' and his father responds with basically, 'Only killing Gallians is bad cos Arcadius loves us. Arcadius told us to kill everyone else tho, so we gotta do it.'



Eesh, look at that editing job on the faceset. Anyway, Vera doesn't really believe in Gallian beliefs. It's where Lysander's sister Molly gets it from. Volrath says Hamil raised Lysander, while Vera raised Molly for the most part.

Hamil tells Lysander that his mother just doesn't understand. I'm glad a tree fell on this guy. Shame it killed Vera at the same time.

The next scene, which has a teenage Lysander... Well, the next image speaks for itself.



Lysander's actually crying here, upset over his father making him kill someone. Hamil responds by shouting that its blasphemy to be upset about elf murder.

Young Molly comforts Lysander, but...



Then comes a brief flash of Hamil signing up Lysander for training...

Then the trainer speaking to Warrick De Cafer about knighting Lysander at only 16 because of his incredible talents.


Then Hamil bragging to someone about Lysander making Knight Captain in only two months, and how there's no prouder father than he.
Vera's there too, and quickly leaves, making Lysander comment that she's so ashamed of him.

Then Lysander genociding dwarves.

And then minotaurs.



The elven attack on Gallia city, which made Lysander a hero...



Arius flees from this scene, saying he never did any of this, that he doesn't have to answer for anything from before the shipwreck. Then he says he doesn't really believe that.



Arius remembers all the people he's helped on his journey...


He remembers Lysander bickering with Molly...

He remembers Marcus Gallius naming Lysander Lord and General of North Gallia, after the death of the former Lord of General there, Khan Vadom. The objection of the nobility due to Lysanders age.

Lynnia asking Lysander out for dinner...

Lynnia and Lysander being wed.

Lysander telling his son, Leonard, the exact same things Hamil once said to him.






An apparition of Nova appears to comfort Arius and then leads him through Lysander's memories...

Which leads to Lysander.



He tells the image of Lysander that it's the one that has to live with its choices, not Arius, and then he strikes it down and the dream's over.


Arius awakens in the real world, almost reborn and feeling great.



He also tells the party he intends to rescue Leonard Barca from the same fate Lysander suffered.



Arius also explains a nature vs nurture kind of thing where he realises he's the way he is now because his friends and their ideals 'imprinted' on him the same way Lysander's father and his ideals did on Lysander. He's wholly seperate from Lysander... But he still considers Leonard his son, and wants a better life for him.

Lastly, Arius takes a brick from the ruins to remind himself what's really at stake, and tells the party that next, they're headed for Port... Vincent!

As for the actual commentary for this sequence, Volrath spends the first part of the dream talking about how it was basically his homage to Satoshi Kon, the japanese anime filmmaker, who he was a big fan of. It's not quite as ambitious as his movies, but, I mean, it's a RPGMaker game for crying out loud.


Meanwhile...



Curiously, Felicia Stormblade isn't present even though her scouts are.



Volrath talks here about how the goals of both Arius and Lysander have changed since the beginning of the game.

Lysander just wanted to get back to Gallia to raise a new army to burn Guardia to the ground but... as we know from the last while, his goals are shifting a bit more towards combatting the corruption of the Gallian Council. And soon he'll be fighting a full-scale rebellion of Gallian citizens.

Meanwhile Arius has gone from 'Stop Lysander from destroying Guardia, my new home' to 'Gallia has to go down for all the lives they destroy' to 'I want to redeem myself, Gallia and my son, Leonard.'

Arius and co. reach Port Vincent and Galdar uses the rock Queen Arianna gave him to disguise himself as human.



He winds up as a VERY handsome blonde guy.


In Port Vincent they met Shirley, a woman who is drunk out of her mind and rambles about how much she hates Gallia to anyone who'll listen even though she wants to go back there, but cant due to current shipping regulations. Arius and co. decide almost on a whim to get on her good side and invite her along.

Then, after nearly failing to convince the port officials that Lysander wasn't really Lysander and that Arius instead, is the real Lysander, the party secures passage to Gallia city on a ship. They board and...



Turns out Lysander specifically left her behind to watch out for Arius and co.

The party easily defeats them and then Arius asks why she joined the Gallian Knights, since she always refused once upon a time when Lysander begged her to sign up, and she never seemed to follow Gallian beliefs.

And Felicia basically says she changed her mind because of the death of her husband, General Randel.



Then they went on the mission to salvage Randels reputation, where Randel spared the King and Queen of the elves... And Lysander murdered him in retaliation.




Lysander is the fucking worst.


Felicia, being lied to that the elves her husband had spared time and time again, had repaid that mercy with his death, joined the knighthood on one condition: That she would only fight elves.

Arius tells her the truth, which she refuses to believe.


Lysander isn't really a liar, for everything else you can say about him, but the Council pressured him to lie. They felt the Gallian citizens would lose faith if it was discovered one of the top generals had turned traitor, and they threatened to demote Lysander if he told the truth. Arius recalls that Lysander only gave in because he was a wife and son to support.






And so she switches sides.

And they get on the boat and prepare to leave. Nova and Turnus are both suspicious though... They think she switched over way too easily. Arius tells them to lighten up.

the end