Part 58: In the Face of Adversity
Part 58 - In the Face of Adversity.jpg)
Previously on Dragonfall... we convinced Glory's ex-girlfriend to switch sides and join our atypically noble cause, freed a local park ranger who was off to a respectable start towards a death by a thousand cuts in the hands of some acolytes, and finally reached the Adversary-corrupted shrine we came here to purify.

And then things got weird, an adjective one would not use very lightly on a day like this.

[Warily, Glory surveys your surroundings.]


Last we checked astral space didn't look like a burning mansion stretching to infinity. This place feels like someone tried to recreate Feuerstelle but accidentally used the extra large spoon when it was time to add the feuer.




[She goes quiet.]



It's an observation we can make thanks to our lengthy chat with your local orichalcum dealer Aljernon some ways back. A lot about the Adversary's true nature is very much up to interpretation, so its realm likewise adjusting to what you're expecting to see doesn't seem too implausible. And Glory is today's guest of honor by the looks of it.


[She grimaces as a sudden wave of heat washes over her.]


All that effort to reach the heart of Feuerstelle and when we finally get there, we now have to find the heart inside the first heart? One of you transforms into Donald Duck and we're jumping into a fireplace.

Alright fine, we'll get to searching. Guessing these sparkly portals are how we're supposed to get around in this place, because who wouldn't want to engage in blind warping when visiting your local hell realm.

Yeah that about figures, and we weren't even at the front this time either. Really feeling like a fairy tale princess today with all this attention, only instead of being surrounded by cute animals the only thing we seem to attract are various bolts of arcane suffering.


We must be in the home turf of grease boy from earlier, which makes you wonder if these things always look this fiery and evil even if we'd ended up in Marta's version of this place. The Mauler's a new acquaintance, but we know a big punchy tank when we see one. The massive claws tend to give it away.


After Marta patches us up with her magic, we use our own to take the big man out of the fight with Blindness, thus confirming that even alternate realities are subject to the universal laws of Mage Supremacy.


These things continue to be annoyingly slippery, but one Seeker and one blind punching bag don't put up much of a fight even with a few missed shots and we pummel both creatures to submission in no time at all.

Another sparkly portal later and this time we find ourselves against two Seekers and a Mauler.

Despite getting the first turn, we manage to land a grand total of zero hits on these dodgy jerks. In hindsight we really should've picked up Aim before coming here since we don't have Dietrich around and Glory in particular could really use the accuracy bonus.

We also learn that Seekers include an area damage spell in their repertoire, so hunkering down with Marta behind this heavy cover wasn't as smart a plan as it seemed. Live and learn, as much as some days make you wish otherwise.

Ah c'mon already

Come on!

Fuck!

Fuuuuuuck

Two turns in and we've yet to inflict a single point of damage, a problem our opponents don't seem to be having at all. At least our cover all but nullifies the normal Seeker bolts, none of that "area spell can crit through cover" nonsense.


Speaking of area spells though, on the third turn we finally manage to turn the tables by repeatedly smacking the packed-up spirits on the face with our balls of lightning and mana after Glory quickly ducks out of the way. The mess of effects and numbers is incredibly satisfying as always.

It didn't really come up here but Maulers do also have the ability to cast Heal Wounds in addition to bashing things, which I guess would make them large and ugly paladin equivalents of a sort.

We take one more crit from a Seeker area spell but afterwards our attacks start finding their mark and we rout the two remaining AoE-fest survivors in short order. So much for the home advantage.
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Glory patches us up with a medkit and we hop on through the next sparkly portal which leads us to...

...the true heart of Feuerstelle, as it turns out. Unexpectedly compact for an endless void, but sure as hell beats the opposite approach of making us wander around in some labyrinthine dream realm with a tedious shapeshifting gimmick for several hours.
Wonder if anybody's home.

Oh. Hi.





[The fluttering feeling swells, and you feel your knees go weak. Marta sobs with joy.]



[She drops a hand to the satchel at her side.]

[The spirit chuckles - a strange, warbling sound that sends a shiver down your spine.]


Sure, nothing shows deep affection like audibly cackling at someone accidentally burning their own mother alive.



[The spirit inclines its head toward you.]

[Glory shoots you a sidelong glance. She mouths out a word.]

Sorry, snark is our main defense mechanism in stressful situations.




[The spirit leans toward her, clasping its hands.]


Oh sure, of course. Something adjacent to a devil-figure offering a grand gift in exchange of the teeny tiny price of leaving our spirit unprotected just for a little bit, that classic tale which always has a happy ending for the person in question. But hey, do humor us.


[She takes a half-step back.]




Extremely dangerous being... must... refrain... from wise-assery...

[The spirit shifts its gaze to you. It braids its taloned fingers together.]

Dammit.


Great to see that Glory's having none of this shit, not even the smallest sign of hesitation anywhere. We actually have one final chance to take a turn to Harrowmurder Lane here, but we've made our decision.



Big deal, that's what we sound like just getting out of bed every day.


Alright, spawning multiple copies of ourselves isn't part of our own morning routine. Got us one-upped with that one.

What, you a fortune cookie now? Cut the enticing promises already and bring it, lumpskull.


Alright, now this is the kind of spirit purification we know how to do. In our first proper boss battle in a while, we're up against three Hearts of Feuerstelle. With 130 HP and a decent chunk of armor each, this looks like it could get a bit rough.

Gotta start from somewhere, so we pick the one on the right. And in staying true to the theme of the day, proceed to miss every single one of our attacks despite our target being the size of an actual broad side of a barn. At least something that big isn't going to take cover behind anything so every actually successful hit has a decent chance to be a critical.

In retaliation the Heart blasts Glory with the same Dark Flame attack we saw from the Seekers earlier. 15 damage a pop pre-crit isn't especially alarming, but if this thing can throw three of those a turn...

The center Heart misses but the one of the left lands one of us and deals... zero damage? Even though we were behind cover, that math doesn't really check out.

Before we can ruminate deeper on the implications of the other spirit's unexpected lack of firepower, another actor makes a sudden appearance on the stage.




Guys, could we do this in a little bit, we're kind of in the middle of something here...

[He turns his head to stare at her, a sad smile on his face.]

[As she tries to respond, her voice catches in her throat.]



So now we have this asswipe to deal with too. Especially compared to the tanky spirit though, Harrow's hide is only mildly more difficult to tear apart than his philosophies.

Alas, the rat vanishes as Glory's about to deal the finishing blow. All that bluster but in an actual confrontation he doesn't even get an attack in before getting chased off with his tail beween his legs, figures.

Turning our attention to the more pressing matters at hand, Marta heals Glory up and lands our first actual hit on the Heart.
We also soften the thing's defenses considerably by removing all of its 6 armor with a single cast of Strip Armor III, another one of those spells which might not get a lot of screentime but which continues to be very strong against bulky foes like this thing.

On the following turn, the Heart draws a new trick from its bag, with all three of its forms disappearing and reappearing elsewhere. Very fancy but doesn't seem especially useful.


Each Heart also act twice, casting a mix of Strip Armor I (which is a lot less effective in the hands of the AI which doesn't actually check armor values and so keeps repeatedly casting it on Marta even after she's down to 0) and a ranged attack which again seems to vary a great deal in damage. One hits us for 8 and the next crits Marta for... three.

If you've played your RPGs then you've probably figured out what's going on by now. Sure enough, what we have in our hands here is a classic mirror image boss. Only one of the Hearts is actually real and possible to damage while the other two vanish upon taking a hit, only to reappear when the boss does its little warp shuffle.
The most obvious way to identify the fakes is that only the actual Heart deals anything even resembling actual damage, though as we've seen even the real deal isn't especially dangerous on that front.

Another attack in the Heart's repertoire is a minor AP-draining area spell similar to a basic stun grenade which is largely just a minor annoyance, though grouping up is a bad plan as usual.
It's also worth noting that the Heart does not regain its armor even after its mirror image trick, which makes removing it ahead of time highly effective.

Oh, and Harrow also reappears shortly after being defeated. It's a real mess in that particular corner right now.
Mechanically there's not much to say about Harrow himself, he's a mage with a standard set of spells. Heal, Fireball, Flamethrower, the works. In fact his loadout is identical to Knight-Errant mages with the exception of his unique ability Harrow's Shield which reduces all incoming damage by 15 for a turn.

None of that really matters because he never gets the chance to do anything. When all is said and done this is not a very hard fight especially with Marta around, the spirit's 150 HP with no damage mitigation from armor is not that much to burn through once we know which one to actually hit (and manage to land the attacks).

We ignore Harrow and focus all our firepower on the real spirit which succumbs to the lingering damage from Marta's Manaball at the start of the following enemy turn, bringing a fairly swift end to this somewhat anti-climactic fight. Or perhaps you could call it...
...a triple heart bypass.
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Seriously though man, that was the most pathetic attempt at making a badass entrance we've ever seen. Maybe if you'd spent more time fiddling with magical formulae instead of underaged teens we all would've ended up in a better place today.





We'd tell you all about the frankly astonishing progress we've made in our search for Vauclair in recent days, but we clearly all have places to be so uh, maybe some other time.
[The projection flashes you a condescending grin.]


Alternatively, had our fridge adventures not led us to the conclusion of Harrow using the spirit as a crutch:
quote:
We've stopped you for now. The kids that you've lured here are going someplace safe. That isn't nothing, Harrow. It's everything.
[The projection chuckles. The sound is thin and hollow.]

[The shadow slowly dissipates, and Harrow is gone.]




Oh hey, nice to see you chill out a bit. Like the leaf getup, goes well with the antlers.






Ooh, sensing some parallels here.

[Glory takes a step toward the giant creature.]

[The spirit stares at Glory for a long moment. Finally, it dips its head in a nod.]






It's nice that we seem to get along now and all but we're still a little wary of spirits offering help right now, you understand. Don't mean to be judgmental or anything but you do still have an intimidating deer skull for a face. Awfully hard to read expressions from.




[It dips its head.]

Look we get the hint and we'd love to volunteer but like

Oh, the protective amulet? This thing wanted us to get rid of that an awful lot earlier too, you completely sure its had a true change of er, heart?



Ah shit, what color was spiritual possession glow again? That better not be spiritual possession glow.

[Slowly, she rises. She looks you in the eye, a quizzical expression on her face.]



Well... alright, we'll trust you on this one. Got a bit alarmed there is all, it's been a day.
[Behind your eyes, your vision starts to twist. It feels as though you're being turned inside out.]





Phew, that was a trip. It's good to be back, though can't help but notice this place also appears to be partially on fire now. Never leave your oversized candle collection unsupervised.



[She surveys the room, a worried expression on her face.]





She's right, place is falling apart at the seams. The hallway north is blocked by some rubble and there's no getting around standard video game rubble, so we head the other way.

This particular pile in front of the acolytes' lounge is of the non-standard variety and thus eminently clearable though. Outta the way now.

Conveniently enough within we find who appears to be all the cultists we encountered earlier, the three initiates and the two knife-happy acolytes.


[The acolyte is in his early twenties - close to Glory's age. His eyes are wide with astonishment.]

[Glory cuts in, but her voice is gentle.]

Seems like they don't remember our previous meeting, let's just hope spiritual mind control doesn't come with permanent brain damage.

Come on people, this hellhole is literally crumbling down around us, how about we leave the Q&A session for a little later?

[Marta cradles her head in her hands.]

And with that last reminder that oh yeah, Marta's still around, we are done with this place. Time to go before we're grilled like a bratwurst and hope there was nobody hiding in any of the other rooms.

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Never has Berlin felt more cozy and predictable. Despite having done what might be considered our objectively most virtuous deed so far, our spiritual reward is a measly 2 Karma. This probably says something about our society.




Yeah, that was a lot. Where to even start unpacking all of it?





Ol' Feuerschwinge sure is a throwing spanners in everyone's works, can't get anything done these days.





We can only pray smugness isn't contagious or we may have yet come to regret our words and deeds this day.






[She looks away.]

Alternatively:
quote:
I don't like the sound of that. It might have been safer to put her down.
Maybe. But that would have been the easy way out... to brand her as irredeemable and kill her in the name of safety. She can turn herself around if she wants to - I'm living proof of that. Maybe, in time, she'll find some semblance of redemption.
And if she doesn't? If she goes on hurting street kids?
[Glory looks you in the eye, and her expression hardens.]
Then I'll find her and correct our mistake.



As one last thing, it didn't come up in the conversation but our reward for finishing Glory's personal mission on the redemption path is the new ability Hearthfire which is... well it's literally just a rebranded Heal Wounds I. It heals the previous instance of damage on a 3-turn cooldown.
A heal is a heal and that's never bad to have or anything, but you'd think being able to directly harness the power of a spirit like that would've made for something a little flashier. Oh well.

Regardless, next time we'll be taking the customary trip to the ~Non-Canon Zone~ and this time... we're done playing nice.

Not much of interest here that hasn't been covered or won't be covered later, just an alternate conversation regarding the nature of the spirit's realm we would've gotten had we not talked to Aljernon about the Adversary all the way back in Part 30:
quote:
If this is the Adversary's domain, wouldn't that make this Hell?
[A startled giggle pours out of Marta's mouth.]
Hell is a myth, Rosa. There's no such place... not really.
I don't know where we are, Rosa. But I think it's safe to say that none of us have ever heard of it before.
Wherever we are, the spirit that we're hunting is going to be here, right?
Yes. It should be here... somewhere.