Part 60: On the Road of Revenge (Part 2)

Part 60 - On the Road of Revenge (Part 2)







Continuing from where we left off, our journey towards the Heart of Feuerstelle proceeds much the same as it did the first time. Marta tags along with us as we get knocked out and wake up in the spirit's realm where the concept of following the hottest trends in interior design has been taken to its extreme...



...exchange pleasantries with the locals in the only language we both understand...



...and reach the Heart itself who acts all big and tough for a while and eventually tries to convince us to discard the amulet that's protecting our spirit from getting swiped. Now to recap:

Our initial plan was to kill Harrow.
Then we lied to Marta and said we'd spare Harrow.
Then Glory told Marta our plan was, in fact, to kill Harrow.
But then Glory herself suggested we should spare Harrow.
And so we agreed to spare Harrow.

Except we're of course going to kill Harrow. Because really, fuck that guy and this dessicated deer corpse too while we're at it, we have a pair of grotesquely bloated egos within needle range and walking away from here without getting to hear them pop would be criminal even by the standards of us, an actual criminal.


<Remove the protective ward from your neck, and His gift is yours for the taking. Yours forevermore.>

To hell with redeeming this thing. The world would be a better place without it.

[Glory shoots you an uneasy glance.]

You understand what you're saying... what that *means*...

This thing is responsible for so much misery, I don't think that it deserves redemption. I want this atrocity *dead,* and Harrow along with it.

[Slowly, she nods.] We make life and death calls all the time in the shadows. This is no different. Letting Harrow live would be the greater evil. Let's destroy this thing.

We've reversed our stance on this like three times at this point and you've pretty much just gone with it every time, either we missed our own calling as a manipulative cult leader or you're still almost concerningly easy to sway.

[Marta stares at you, wild-eyed, her mouth agape.]

No! This can't happen! You *promised* me!

Harrow is responsible for all of this, Marta. For you, for me... even for the corruption of this spirit. He has to die. It's the only way that this will ever really be over.

Yeah sorry about lying to you repeatedly about this whole thing Marta but hey look, we've already come this far, fought side by side as comrades and all that, so let's just all agree to







[She shakes her head in shock and horror.]

Oh, God. Oh *no.*

...In hindsight some minor aspects of this plan might've been a little short-sighted.





[The spirit cackles.] <Your suffering has only just begun. We will grind your body to dust.>



Well that was a pretty unfortunate turn of events, and after all that effort trying to avoid this outcome too. We do still have a job to finish though, so nothing to it now but to push forward and get it done by ourselves.





The fight against the Heart proceeds much the same as before, though obviously not having Marta around makes it somewhat more troublesome. Still, the mechanics are the same so we're just going to skip the combat bits this time.



Harrow shows his pasty mug a turn into the fight just like before.


Glory. You shouldn't have come here. I was content to let you live out your life in peace.

You taught me to kill, monster. You trained me to like it. It seems only fitting that I share what I've learned with you.

I don't want to kill you, Glory. And I won't, unless you force my hand.

[The flickering silhouette spreads its arms wide.]

Ask me for my protection, and I will usher you out of this place. You can leave Feuerstelle in peace. If you ask me politely, I might even let your friend leave with you.

You're going to die tonight, Harrow. I'm going to tear out your throat.



Sheesh, is no one here aware of the phrase "too soon"? Come on.



Some time later, Glory depletes the last of the Heart's HP...







...and then proceeds to blow it the hell up shit yeah



Okay, that's kind of cool too. Mildly disconcerting since it's probably not supposed to do that, but undeniably cool.



You stupid bitch! What... what have you *done?!?*





I hope the bastard burns.


















What's... what's happening?

[She gives you a sidelong glance.] We're getting what we wanted. Harrow - the real Harrow - isn't far from here, and he isn't in shape to put up much of a fight.

But we need to get moving... things are spilling through from the other side, like rats fleeing a sinking ship.





Easy to guess that first one's Harrow, and he won't be going anywhere anytime soon if Glory's claim that the spirit's destruction would cripple him is to be believed.

We just might accomplish both of our goals here, that bastard's already toast in every sense of the word so we should still be able to make it to the lounge and get those kids out if we beeline it.

Let the fire take Harrow. We can still save the initiates... they can't be far from here, I can hear them screaming.



What? No pretty sure we could, they're not that far and we've already kind of done it once before, there's a bit of rubble we need to clear but... what do you mean "wouldn't matter"? Glory?



As we step out of the shrine room, we find the host of the party in the flesh.



Flesh that his visibly unhappy guests are rapidly working their way through.





Okay that was cool the first time but we have several concerns about what is happening right now.





Hello, lover.





Oookay then. So it turns out you were in fact completely right in saying that this job would probably end up haunting our dreams back when we arrived, although this is not what we- hold on.



Uhhh...

Glory... what happened to your pendant? The ward that you were wearing - where is it?



I... I don't know. I must have lost it somewhere along the way.

Yeah no shit you lost it somewhere along the way, but it's the spirit-protecting amulet we're concerned about right now. We're currently putting some twos and twos together here and we're pretty sure these fours we're ending up with aren't supposed to be sprouting horns.



When did you lose it? Before or after we killed the Spirit?

After, I think. I don't know. But don't worry... I feel fine. Besides which, we have more pressing concerns at the moment. We need to get out of here - it's only a matter of time before this entire compound shakes itself apart.

I can't take you back to the Kreuzbasar before we know what happened to you.

Then you'd better get comfortable with the idea of dying in here, because this building is coming down. When we get back home, we can figure this out. I'll *help* you figure it out, okay? But we need to get moving, and we need to do it fast.

I'm holding you to that.





...Yeah. Harrow is most assuredly incredibly dead. On that part we are in agreement.












Last time it felt great returning to Berlin and leaving all the horrors of Feuerstelle behind us, but this time it somehow feels like the jury's still out on that second part.


[She nods at you.] Thank you for your help at Feuerstelle. I couldn't have done it without you.

We need to talk about what happened to you back there.

[There is a long pause before she responds.]

You'll need to be more specific.

Seriously?

You know what I'm talking about, Glory. The missing pendant. The Other Place. And the burning hand that you brought back with you.

Ah. That. Well, clearly, *something* happened when I plunged my claw into the Heart of Feuerstelle. But as to what that something was...

[She shrugs.]

Your guess is as good as mine.

So... don't you think that we should *do* something about it?

What do you propose that we do? *I* don't know how to reverse what's happened to me. To be frank, I don't even know why I'd *want* to change this.



Okay this thing here might at first glance look like a phone book but it's in fact a list of

Don't bother answering that - it was a rhetorical question. And I can see that you won't be satisfied until I offer you some sort of real answer.

[She steeples her fingers, musing.]

I suppose it's possible that, when the spirit died, some portion of its essence was trapped in the hand that I used to kill it.

How could that happen?

We were in a place with different rules, remember? I'm already too far out of my comfort zone to offer you any real answers.

[She shrugs again.]

Maybe it reacted to the orichalcum in the balm that I was wearing. I don't know.



Right. The toxic Adversary-corrupted spirit has somehow connected with a part of you and imparted you with magic. You, the person who literally sacrificed her own body to break her last remaining link to the Adversary, incidentally also the last time you were still able to use magic. "Good" is of course relative, but...

It's helpful, sure. But helpful and good aren't always the same thing.

Call it what you will, whatever this is it's a part of me now. Let's change the subject. Is there something else that you wanted to talk to me about?

Yeah. We killed Harrow, but we didn't manage to save any of the cultists - not a single one of them. We didn't even try.

I wish that we could have saved everybody. But we made a decision to kill Harrow, no matter the cost. I won't second-guess that decision now.

Maybe. I just wish that we could have saved *somebody.*

It's great that he got what was coming for him but the man was already doomed the moment we killed the spirit, can't shake the feeling that we gave up the lives of those kids merely for the sake of a more personal revenge.



We did a good thing back there, Rosa. You just can't see that from where you're standing.

Lastly, about Marta, you looked... distraught... when she died. How are you holding up on that front?

[Her expression clouds.] As well as can be expected. My feelings on this are... complicated.

I don't want to push you on this if you don't want to talk about it.

No, it's okay... I *should* talk about this. Running from it won't help anything.

[She looks away.]

A part of me still loved her, I think. But the rest hated her for what she represented. Am I ultimately sorry that she's dead...? Yes. Killing her like that brought me no joy. But, on the other hand, I'm not sure what the alternative would be.



All in all, it's probably better that things turned out the way they did. That's what I keep telling myself, anyway.

Guess that answers all of my questions. Thanks for taking the time to talk.

And that is the end of that. Or so one can hope.



The reward for finishing Feuerstelle on the revenge path is a weapon upgrade for Glory. Guess it was only a matter of time until they made this particular pun, even if it took them until the re-release of the DLC.



Smacking people with what is clearly not a dried hand of a hanged man deals the same base damage as her normal claws, but the damage over time portion is upgraded from 2 bleed damage per turn to 5 mana burn damage per turn.

There does not seem to be a practical difference between the damage types which is a shame, having the ability to inflict the effect on bleed-immune enemies such as robots would've made for a neat bonus. As it is, my gut feeling is that in all its simplicity the heal from Hearthfire is likely the more desirable reward as most individual enemies simply don't last long enough for the damage difference to really do work.



And that concludes today's journey to the ~Non-Canon Zone~. We are now officially done with everyone's personal missions and alongside it all the main content added in Director's Cut. And as great as most of it has been, it'll also be nice to go back to making some actual story progress and maybe freeing the outside world from its stasis again.

Next time we begin tackling our final job before finally taking the train down the rabbit hole, one last time.