Part 15: Update XV - What Could Have Been
Update XV - What Could Have Been
Alright then, let's turn back time a bit. Last time, we got the "good ending" for the story of Rabenstein. The least possible amount of people got sacrificed in the ritual (the four soldiers from Alvaro's force) and Lythia got sent to the afterlife. Now, let's see what could have gone differently...
For this, I ended up having to do a little bit of hacking around with the copy of the game I have to fuck around in with the RPG Maker to put a party of Grandy, Libra and Dankwart in front of the cutscene trigger. Why not Tarius? Because he's entirely pointless for anything in chapter 3, and having him around requires some switches to work properly, so fuck him. Thankfully, I believe that Rabenstein is completely self-contained as far as switches go - there's nothing from other places that has an impact on what happens here, beyond the Tarius part, that is. As such, just jumping into things without technically having done anything else beforehand shouldn't cause any issues. It does, but the issues aren't that big a deal, as we'll see later.
...people told me to keep separate save files, and yet I didn't do it. God damn. At least this is the only time where it really would have come in handy. Now watch as I end up in the last chapter and do something catastrophically wrong that fucks everything up. Oh well. Moving on...

The intro plays out exactly the same. How could it play out differently, anyway? Tarius has no lines and there's no choices to be made!

The first divergence from our main path is here, in the conversation with Dankwart in our room. I skipped this in the main run because I just gave him the book and left, but here we're not giving him the book.


In the first run, we basically implied answer #2. This time around, let's just be lazy.


And Grandy hits the sack. Basically, we miss out on all the things we mention to Dankwart when we got back in the other run. When we wake up, we find Dankwart still sitting where he sat before.


Here's the issue I was talking about - I didn't set the walking speed, so the game thinks I'm walking slowly when I'm actually walking quickly. Because of that, whenever there's a cutscene where Grandy is walking, he blitzes ahead and then waits for the others to catch up. It doesn't change anything since it's just a cutscene, and it's kind of funny to watch.

Now that we're at the party, but Tarius isn't there, how is the game going to force Grandy to sit at the head of the table?


Alrighty then.

The "ceremony" also goes on exactly the same with the exception of Grandy going all Speedy Gonzales on us.

We make it out without problems - not hard when you're running a lot faster than everybody else.

Our first step, once again, is to find Dankwart. Without him, pretty much nothing happens.

Once again, leaving the library triggers Sylvia being out and about.

This time, we run into Priamor without knowing of his involvement with Roland's death. The beginning of the conversation goes the same, but then...

Let's buy into his act this time around.






The scene where we run into Sylvia for the first time goes pretty much the same way with the exception of one line being added.

And then Priamor legs it, and then so do we.

Our next destination is in the secret passages on the first floor.

Well, isn't that a surprise - the padre retreated to his little sacrificial chamber.






And then he gets his shit pushed in just the same.


We then run into Sylvia twice, running away from her twice as well.

After that, we take a look at the massacre for the first time, this time from the left. I love the little


We run into Burger, and it goes the same here as well since we now know that Priamor had been hiding something. However, there's no real difference to be found with Burger here - regardless of how much you know, he'll always end up attacking you because you ask too many questions, whether it be about the ceremony, about Sylvia, or about Roland.

We then move to free the prisoners while Sylvia is still out and about, but we're missing lockpicks.

Thankfully, the creator accounted for this and stuck lockpicks into this chest.

As such, we can now let them out.

But when we get closer to the exit from the secret passages, there's a scream and some other horrific sounds.

And then...

...well, shit. At this point, I decide to head to the servants, but...




Moving on for a bit...

The scene between Karlo and Alvaro has no changes.

After that, I head to Sylvia's room, hoping to find something, but I don't find anything. This confuses the crap out of me while I was playing, and I repeatedly check back over the course of the trip, but I think I know what the problem is.
For those keeping score at home, we've got 4 (Alvaro's men) + 2 (prisoners) + 2 (kitchen staff) + 1 (Fitzgerald) = 9 sacrifices out of 7 needed. That should mean that this is officially over, but it doesn't quite seem to work that way. From what I can gather, the game tracks when "the end" should occur in two separate ways - a series of switches and a variable tracking the victims of Sylvia. However, it seems that the variable only kicks in once you've read Priamor's notes - basically, the limit only exists once you know it exists. Essentially, we've gone quantum.

I check into Xynthia's room, where Sylvia should have moved, but she's not there. Now, is this because the whole thing is over?

Clearly not, because she's still not where she should be.

So finally, I end up reading the book...

...and head to Alvaro with our new knowledge. The conversation goes the same up to this point...


This time around, let's all search for Sylvia. What could possibly go wrong?






After that, there's these guys patrolling around several parts of the castle. I backtrack to Sylvia's room, still nothing.

Finally, I just go ahead and check the picture...

...and have Dankwart figure it all out. Only then...

...does this whole thing finally end.




What do you mean, lonely? There's still a bunch of soldiers roaming the ha-
... oh. Oh dear.











What to do? 1) Destroy Sylvia! 2) No!
Well, since this is non-canon, basically it doesn't matter. However, let's think about this for a second. Lythia brings up a good point - if we assume that Malthur really is coming back (the prophets could be wrong, still), then odds are good that Wahnfried will try to ally with him. If Lythia were able to disrupt that, it might put the two at odds and maybe make it easier to come out on top for our group. It's all still very complicated, and Wahnfried's role in this whole thing regarding Malthur and Lythia is still a complete mystery. For what it's worth, we'll leave her alive in this run.


We'll have to see what impact this would have. Not to spoil too much, but this decision has an impact on one pivotal scene, and I'll insert the changes when they become relevant in that update. And as we walk around the castle...



...

...let's just get out of here. So that's basically the "bad ending" for Rabenstein. To sum up: EVERYBODY FUCKING DIES.

To take our mind off the death and decay, let's take a look at the easy way to infiltrate Düsterburg.

With all the loot pilfered from our trip to Rabenstein in hand, we get a new option when coming up to the checkpoint guarded by the big bad demon.











And the crew disappears behind a tree.






We then hear some coughing.






Then we hear a yelp.



























And then, with a foreboding shot of Castle Düsterburg...

...we would pass into chapter 4. The next part would see Libra's disguise falling apart because of the rain and our heroes seeking the entrance to the secret entrance to the castle. However, we still have things to do in chapter 3, so we'll be turning the clock back next time.