Tales of Vesperia Part #108

Part 108: Arson

After getting all four spirits, this scene automatically triggers when flying around on the world map:

Watch the cutscene!

No, he's fine... But he's uneasy.

What's wrong?

The apatheia within him isn't enough to undergo spirit conversion yet. But he knows that someday, he will need to give up his current form and become a spirit...

Well, humans are all going to die sometime, but we don't spend every day worrying about it.

I imagine some people do.

Are you saying Ba'ul is that weak?

He's far more delicate than you, Yuri.

Dying, in his case, isn't exactly death like we normally think of it though, right?

But it does mean that his consciousness will disappear, and be replaced by something new.

So, it's basically a fear of the unknown. That part of it is actually not too different from us.

They feel it is their duty to maintain the stability of this planet.

Ba'ul's got a mission of his own though, doesn't he? I mean, what about his commitment to destroy all of the hermes blastia?

The determination necessary for destroying blastia and becoming a spirit are very different. Ba'ul...still lacks the resolve to give up his identity as an Entelexeia.

I think lacking it is a lot healthier, if you ask me. And I certainly understand.

He seems pleased that you understand him. Still, I worry about him going on like this...

No, not in the least. But, I wonder what the Entelexeia... What the spirits themselves must think...

I'm not sure... Ba'ul and the spirits are communicating. ...Or something like that...but without using their voices.

What happened?

He says we shouldn't worry about him.

But what was all that?

Hmm... The spirits said something to calm him down.

Maybe they told him how easy they've got it.

Yeah, probably. At any rate, it's impossible for him to become a spirit now.

We're going to have to go on depending on you until the journey's over, Ba'ul.

He wants you to know you can count on him.

Now for something that... doesn't really make sense that it unlocks now and wasn't available earlier.

There are four of these structures scattered around the world, I believe I showed one of them earlier in the LP.

We have to go to this one.

What's this...?

Some sort of ruins? Maybe?

But it doesn't look like humans built anything here.

Judy, do you know anything about this place?

No. To me, it looks like it was formed naturally, rather than made by human hands.

There's not anythin' here, from the looks of it.

Well, let's have a look around, at least.

Now, if we went here earlier, the following scene wouldn't trigger:

It looks like it's been pretty worn down by wind.

That's the sword we got from the Elder in Myorzo.

...A spear came from inside the rock...?

No skills.

Its shape... It looks like this is a fell arm, too.

Yes, I think so.

It seems like there's some sort of strange power linking these two weapons together.

Hey, I think we can get inside from here!

I like these inside areas. They're pretty, even if there's barely anything actually here.

Hm, it looks like there's something in the back there, doesn't it? No way to get there though.

If we go to the middle of the area, though:

It looks like it's an aer krene.

Wow, who would've thought a natural aer krene would be left here...

With that giant rock sealin' it up, it makes sense that nobody'd get inta here until now.

What's up, Yuri?

What...what do you think will happen if you use it?

Why don't you give it a try?

Whoa... The orb's color is different from last time...W-what is it?

...The difference in color is due to an increase in fire attributes..

Fire...I wonder if it could burn anything you wanted.

I think...that's probably not the case. It seems beyond the Sorcerer's Ring's capabilities.

What was it? The two types of aer are reacting to each other, or something?

On a basic level, that's pretty much right.

I seeee. So the ring can burn a tree or a vine, since they've got aer runnin' through 'em.

Not all material has aer flowing through it, so there are a lot of things the Sorcerer's Ring wouldn't be able to ignite.

So depending on what's hit by the blast, some things will break, and other things will burn?

I'd think most objects wouldn't even react at all.

Yes, that's right. Normally, aer mixes with the surrounding atmosphere, and nothing happens at all. But if you take a mass of aer and collide it with a material that already contains aer... The violence of the sudden confluence of aer can destroy or ignite the original object that was struck.

Mmm, that makes sense.

That's all a bit too complicated for me to wrap my head around. But at least it's clear that we can put this ring to good use.

Yeah, we can go places we couldn't before. Let's go around and see!

Yeah, let's do that!

Before we do, though, let's check out the other Aer Krenes on the world map.

This one is south of Zaphias. We could have gone here earlier but would not have been able to enter it, but now that we have the level 4 ring, we can!

But... there's nothing here at all. Hm. Let's try another?

This one is north of Caer Bocram.

...Nothing in here either. But surely the last one must have something, right?

It's between Dahngrest and Yumanju. This is the one I showed off earlier, I believe.

Nothing here either. Huh.

Alright, I'll solve it. I was actually expecting something to happen in here, but I guess that one needs an arbitrary story trigger that I haven't reached yet. The other two Aer Krenes, though? Completely useless. There's absolutely nothing in them, despite the obvious paths and doorways to go further inside.

I guess they originally planned to have stuff in them but ran out of time during development. In fact, I'm very sure that's what happened, since in the PS3 version there actually is something in them that makes a lot of sense. We'll get to that some other time though.

Instead, let's go back to some older dungeons with our new shiny fire-shooting sorcerer's ring.

In the Quoi Woods, we can shoot this huge bush near the end of the dungeon.

Behind it, we can find a couple chests and a giganto monster. We're gonna leave the monster for later, but grab the chests:

Yay, another doll for Repede!

No skills.

And another Fell Arm! That makes three out of seven. (Nine in PS3.)

Last area of the day: Keiv Moc.

There is a ton of stuff to burn in here.

Since all of the enemies in these old dungeons are really easy, I trigger two skits about them.

Skit: No Mercy!

That last battle went by in the blink of an eye. You guys are merciless!

Hit before the enemy has a chance to. The only certain victory is a preemptive one.

We can't show our enemies any mercy!

If we take it too easy, then we're just playin' with 'em. Makes me feel sorta bad fer 'em, ya know?

But still, I think a little bit of mercy would have been okay, just to be fair.

You're prolly the most cold-blooded, merciless killer of us all, Judith darlin'.

Oh? You really think that?!

Looks like she doesn't even realize it.

I think she's just pretending not to.

Skit: Exquisite Battles

This is amazing! We've been through so many battles without a scratch!

Yeah! We are soooo tough!

Yes, it's not fun at all to get hurt, even if we can heal wounds.

Though I have to say, it's unusually exhilarating to see enemies in pain.

You're...scary...

*Woof!*

Battle scars are the true mark of a man.

What's the point of a battle if you don't get hurt?

Oh? You like getting hurt?

That's not what I'm saying...

I don't get you at all.

I get the feelin' Rita likes dolin' out pain more than she likes receivin' it! ♥

I do.

Yer pretty scary, yerself...

And what do we get for our arson spree? Quite a bit actually.

No skills.

That's four!

As soon as we board our ship with four or more fell arms, we get a short scene regarding them:

Watch the cutscene!

Now we've found most of the fell arms.

They don't seem really powerful to me...

Maybe there's something we have to do to awaken them fully.

We'd be gettin' a big boost to our own strength if we could manage that.

Though it wouldn't be good to depend upon them too much.

That's right... Just like an over-reliance on blastia led to severe repercussions. If we rely on the power of the fell arms, we might be repeating the same mistakes.

Well, just don't use 'em then. We're just gathering them up to make sure the wrong type of people don't get them.

Right.

Before we end for today, there's a small PS3 sidequest scene we can activate:

We get a couple random synth materials here, then...

You mean the item that fortune teller we met mentioned? But... I'm hard pressed to find a use for these items.

Estelle, what would you do in my shoes?

Huh? Me? Let me think... Perhaps you could use them as material to make a dress?

Aye, that's it! It's mentioned in Sea Doctrine No. 53! "A man of the sea needs some sex appeal! Diligence will only get you so far!" All right, now that that's decided, let's make some irresistibly cute clothes!