Part 84: Guido's Hollow ~ The Last Gasp Of A Dying Age

I told Artix that Level-5, in its infinite wisdom, backended 100% of the “story” of this Avatar Story into the second-to-last thing they ever released for the game.

He replied, more or less, “that’s the Level-5 I know and love!”

Clench people. This one’s a doozy.


We begin this penultimate chapter in the far northwest corner of the world that is conspicuously empty in the NTSC version. An entirely new location has suddenly opened up on the map now that we’ve unlocked the ninth Avatar Story mission.

Holy shit? Original content? Like for real? What is this new devilry?!

Well, Level-5 was apparently holding out on us this whole time. Or rather, I suppose they were stalling for time to get this final dungeon finished. You see, the Avatar Story was released on a per-episode basis from March to August 2011—nearly a full year after the NTSC-J version of White Knight Chronicles II was released in 2010. They had a solid year to work on this addendum to the story, and instead, we get… this.

Though that’s on top of the monthly free DLC quest and weapons/armour updates too. The North American and European versions only got about a third of the total free DLC material that the original Japanese version did, all told. Because D3 was even more lazy than Level-5 itself was and just literally gave the fuck up about localizing anything after the original v. 1.10 patch came out.

Most of those DLC quests, however, are just low-effort time wasters with the same materials just shuffled around to new locations and are completely disconnected from anything in the story despite involving certain elements or characters from the storyline at times. So they’re all completely skippable, yay!

BUT ANYWAY! As I said, a new location has appeared on the map, the ruined fortress of Guido’s Hollow. Let’s see now if there’s any story to be found herein now that we’re two chapters away from the close of the game and the LP along with it.


EPISODE NINE – Last Hope

So Cyrus has led us deep into the frozen northlands into territory claimed by neither Faria, Balandor, Greede, or Yshrenia. What we find up here is a recently uncovered ruin from the Dogma Era that is curiously still active. An expedition lead by the Royal Science Academy has been probing the fortresses depths with heightened interest now that we’re facing an alleged extra-dimensional apocalypse, and Cyrus believes that there may well be something, anything, really, here that could help avert the impending disaster.


We begin this chapter with Eldore and Yulie back in place as our #2 and #3 characters, though as we’ve all seen they don’t matter outside of gameplay, so there’s really no point in even mentioning them, is there?


Cyrus leads Framboise and Orren to the gates of the frigid fortress.




Framboise: This place, it’s…


CUTSCENE MUSIC: “Echoes of the Past” (Unreleased Track)

Oruro: Amazing, isn’t it? Glad you see you’ve all made it in one piece…


Oruro: Though I must say, you’re later than I’d expected you to be.


Framboise: M-master Oruro!


Oruro: You always had a certain knack for causing all sorts of trouble, didn’t you, Framboise?
Orren: Yeah, it’s great to see you again too, jackass (even if you are 100% correct).


Oruro: And you brought friends with you.


Oruro: It’s a strange fate, I see, that has brought us all together again in this frozen waste. Tell me, lad, there is much I suspect I need to know of your travels before we continue.




Orren: Four times. Seriously, who lets someone get kidnapped four times in a row?
Oruro: …Good gods.


Oruro: Hmm. So this is tied to the ones from the Magic Plane.


Framboise: But, Master…


Oruro: Don’t blame yourself, Framboise, this is not your fault. This crisis the result of my miscalculation. This whole scenario had been orchestrated all the way back in the Dogma Age, and is just now coming to pass as its authors had intended.


Oruro: But I intend to help you put a stop to it. Please, let me show you inside.








AREA MUSIC: “Infiltration” (Disc 1, Track 12)

So Guido’s Hollow gets the badass “important things are happening” area music playing over it. I suppose it’s only natural, seeing as how our last full-scale Dogma Era dungeon (not counting Vellgander or the Garmatha) had this music too.




So as you’ll see on the map I’ll be posting for this place at the bottom, Guido’s Hollow is actually a decent-sized environment. It’s not monstrously huge or anything, and it’s made up mostly of narrow hallways and chambers, but at least it’s an actual dungeon this time instead of the Garmatha’s “corridor to the final boss.”

The objective marker on the map points us to Framboise, Oruro, and Cyrus have all gathered, and where we’ll get out to-do list for this episode. It’s not going to be as drawn out and bullshitty as the last one was, I promise.


So this place is kind of cool, all told. It’s got these neat purple fires blazing all over the place and blue energy pulsating along the walls and doors.

Balandor’s kind of colonized the place already, setting up tents and supply posts all over the place.


Balandor Solider: We’ve been waiting for you. Master Oruro is waiting for you just ahead now.


Royal Scholar: We had a hell of a time just trying to reach this place. Many of the soldiers sent along with us were killed along the way. But we can’t let that stop us, as harrowing as it might be. We have to accomplish our mission here.


Aide: Eh? Oh, I was just wondering what the relationship was between Miss Framboise and Master Oruro? I honestly don’t know. She never talks about her past with us, but I think she must have been an apprentice of his long ago. They almost seem like father and daughter at times… And that would explain why she knows more about the Knights and how they operate than anyone else in the Royal Science Academy.
Orren: Even then she barely knows anything about how the Knights work…
Aide: Master Oruro was in charge of the Academy for years before they found the White Knight… but that all changed the night the Magi attacked the castle. After King Valtos died, he just left the capital without so much as a word.
Orren: Smart move. I wouldn’t want to be caught dead playing for Team Ledom either.
Aide: After Queen Cisna was rescued, Miss Framboise was officially named his successor, and continued studying the Knights right from where he left off. But now, I think Master Oruro saw something like this coming all along. That’s why he left and set out to study the Knights on his own.
Orren: That sounds incredibly stupid. Why not tell anyone else about what he thought was coming? Why not follow Leonard and research the Knights up close and personal? Why abandon the resources of the Academy like that? Hell, Framboise made her own Knight by accident, who knows what Oruro could have done knowingly. This sounds like a really dumb retcon to me.

And this game’s cup runeth over with really dumb retcons.


These shots aren’t really doing this place justice at the moment, but we’ll be seeing some better angles of it fairly shortly, especially once we get outside and have a look around.


Framboise: I still can’t believe it, this really could be the end for us, for the whole world even… What are we going to do?


Cyrus: You don’t have to worry about what’s happening back in Faria. Oswald’s reinforcements should have arrived in the Archduchy by now. I know we have to focus on our mission here… But still, I wish there was something more I could do for them.


Oruro: Before we get going, I’d like to ask for your help in getting things back up and running around here. It’s vitally important to this mission. I assure you.
Orren: Another bloody fetch quest? The world’s coming to an end out there, doc… Allegedly.
Oruro: Deep in these ruins lies a gate that leads to the Magic Plane. But unlike the ones you’ve encountered up till now, this one can be open and closed artificially from this side of the rift. I had the team here seal it off when we first arrived, because I knew the danger it posed, but now I fear we must reactivate it. It’s the only hope we have left of stopping this crisis… The key to reactivating it lies somewhere within these ruins.
Orren: I guess when you turned it off you weren’t worried about ever trying to fire it back up again, huh?
Oruro: I am certain only you have the power to find it, lad. The Arc Knight chose you, my boy. Only you have the power to end this now.
Orren: Well what do you know, a little recognition goes a long way.
Oruro: Please my lad, we’re in your debt already. Will you help us out?


If it means we can get another step closer to ending this madness once and for all, then sure, why the hell not?






So Guido’s Hollow essentially one giant square. There’s about 9 rooms in total connected by long hallways.






In the centre we find the main courtyard of the fortress, where the majority of the boss fights in the spat of DLC missions that take place here occur.


And just like last time, we come across an argument between a soldier and a really fucking dense scientist.

Balandor Solider: H-hey! What are you doing out here?! It’s not safe to wander away from the base camp! Please, you have to head back to the camp!


Royal Scholar: Hard to believe that this place was just sitting up here in the mountains this whole time.
Orren: Wow, so you don’t even care that this guy’s trying to shepherd your dumb ass back to safety? Okay then.
Royal Scholar: Yet it was like Master Oruro already knew it was here when we set out to find it. It’s so strange…


So the outside courtyard is where Guido’s Hollow comes to life… almost.


Though, par for the course in this game, all the interesting stuff is tucked up and away at an angle that you need to fight with the camera to tilt it up and look at all of it.


There’s four of these towers with bridges between them and everything. Also par for the course, we never go beyond the ground level of this dungeon, so instead of having four whole towers full of potentially interesting stuff to explore as the capstone for the game, especially after the pointless, underwhelming grindfest that was Vellgander… we get another kind of pointless underwhelming dungeon.


Behold.


So once again, the game gives you NO indication of what the fuck you’re supposed to do to complete this chapter. There’s no objective markers, and no one you talk to gives you any concrete hint as to where you should be searching for this “key”.

According to the Japanese wiki I used to get through this level, you need to go around and open up chests located in specific areas across the ruin.


Royal Scholar: Hello there everyone. What’s that? Why am I so nervous? Well… It’s this treasure chest. We’ve come to believe that the energy required to operate various apparatuses in the facility lies sealed in chests like these.
Orren: There’s a “but” coming, isn’t there?
Royal Scholar: But… I’m afraid to even think about opening it. There’s chests like this one all over the ruins, it seems. What’s more we’ve detected something else sealed inside there along with the energy.


You hear a roar from deep within the chest: “My name is Guido! Guido Kantarabe!”

Wait, Kantarabe? Why does that name sound familiar?

Then it asks you if you wish to release the power trapped inside?




The chest pops open and a rush of energy flies out of it.




The screen then fades to black. Yep, it’s miniboss time!


So there’s actually three chests per area that you can pop open, they all do and say the same thing. The only difference is what kind of Ark Incorruptus they spring on you as a miniboss.

This one spits up a Tier 3 Sword Incorruptus.


But after practically climbing up a mountain of these fuckers to get to Madoras in Vellgander, this is old hat for us.


So down it goes.






On to the next area.


Balandor Solider: This is a treasure chest.
Orren: No shit?! REALLY?! I’m astounded

( This game thinks you’re dumb.)

Balandor Solider: I’ve tried everything I can think of, but for some reason I can’t get it to open. I can’t seem to find a keyhole or anything to open it. What in the world kind of chest is this?

A plot bullshit chest!


So this chest throws a Tier 4 Sword Incorruptus at us.


Just like fighting gigases, combatting Knights has ALSO lost its allure. Thank god we’re almost done with this gongshow.




Orren: So just what do you think you all'd be doing if you never got wrapped up in any of this madness, anyway?
Yulie: Trying to double our yearly wine output at the vineyard. And trying to stop Leonard from choking on his shoelaces.
Eldore: I don’t know, what DO people who are still in their 20’s do with their time?
Orren: Heh. Yeah. Wow, you really got screwed something hash, didn’t you?




Royal Scholar: This is all so amazing! To think these ruins are still active even after 10,000 years. Even if found a way to develop Knights of our own today, I bet they’d still be nothing compared to the ones from the Dogma Age.

He’s technically right on that one. The Arc Knight wasn’t a wholly modern creation, it was merely co-opted and heavily modified from an existing Dogma Era-created Knight by Framboise and her team.


Royal Scholar: Even if we were able to use the rift gate, what are going to do? Just throw someone in with a rope around their waist and hope for the best?
Royal Scholar: I’m not sold on it either, but if there’s chance we’ve got to take it. We’re running out of time.


Aide: Thank you so much for helping to stabilize the power output of the ruins. Already so many thing are coming back online, we can barely keep up with it all.


And that’s about it for NPCs you can talk to in the ruins. There’s only three more out there, but they’re spread out on opposite ends of the fortress.




Royal Scholar: This isn’t just some treasure chest, that’s for certain. It’s some sort of seal disguised as a chest. They’re all over the place around here. Whatever they are, they must be something very important.


Once you pop, the fun don’t… Let’s be honest, the fun never started in the first place.


This chamber shakes things up a bit in that our miniboss is a pair of Tier 2 Ice Elemental Knights, one wielding a sword, and the other wielding a hammer.


Nothing worth commenting on.






It’s the same thing in the other chamber directly cross the way, only there’s a spear-wielding Knight this time in addition to a hammer Knight.






Royal Scholar: Look down there below us. It looks like it goes on forever. And those things flying around down there, what kind of technology is that? This place is just so far beyond us, it’s unreal.


And sure enough if you look down into the abyss between the centre platform and the side walkway in this chamber, you can see a bunch of floating blocks zipping around in the darkness, propelled by some unknown force.


Now, we’ve got to head outside and take out a couple of Ark Crystals to get the last bits of the fortress up and going.


Again, these outdoor parts of the fortress are pretty cool, at least in my opinion. Just like deserts at dusk, also have a thing for snowfield landscapes and this snowed in ruin almost justifies this place’s existence to me. Too bad that this part is only like 10% of the total dungeon, if even.


So that’s why I’m taking as many screenshots of it as a I can to drag it out.




So yeah, Ark Crystals…


Meh. Whatever.


We’ve ALL about had it with this game’s 31 flavours of bullshit, haven’t we?


AUGH! Fuck you, Level-5, fuck you so much for couching an atmospheric shot like this in a bog of stupid and incompetence!

This game could have been SO GOOD! It really could have been! HOW?! How do you fuck up something that has EVERYTHING going for it BY DEFAULT?!


Just one more update. One more…


Balandor Solider: Please take care as you venture through the ruins. There’s still many traps hidden about that we haven’t managed to disarm yet.
Orren: Oh, NOW you tell me.


And once we take out that one last set of Ark Crystals, we’ve killed everything in Guido’s Hollow that there is to be killed, so it’s time to head back to the basecamp and see what Oruro, Framboise, and Cyrus are up to now.


Oruro: Oh you’re back? Splendid! I’ve found another round of tedious busywork for you to do for me now.
Orren: Nope!


Oruro: Hmmm… It appears the ruins are fully operational again. Well done, lad. We’ll have to move quickly now. We’re nothing but a target now unless we strike first. Are you ready to move?
Orren: I don’t even know what the hell we’re doing, but whatever. Just point me at what you need killed or broken, and it’s as good as gone.
Oruro: Let’s go.




And then—HOLY SHIT! Another cutscene! Jesus, Level-5’s just splurging on this one, aren’t they?


CUTSCENE MUSIC: “Enternal Engraving” (Disc 2, Track 20)

Oruro: Sadly, this is not the first time the powers of the other world have interfered in the affairs of our own. The artifacts left behind from the Dogma Age prove that all too well.


Framboise: You mean the Knights? Right?


Oruro: Indeed.


Oruro: An uncountable number of people lost their lives bringing the Knights into existence.


Oruro: And even more lost their lives to the Knights in the war.
Orren: “A garden tended by Death.” The Knights were just a right proper plough for these guys then.


Oruro: They were a conduit between our worlds, holding the rift open with their very existence... Until Queen Mureas severed the connection with her sealing spell, that is.
Orren: She’s still a war criminal though, let’s not forget that part.
Oruro: To the forces beyond the rift, it was an unexpected development, they were unprepared and left trapped on their side when the gate was sealed.


Cyrus: So it wasn’t just Madoras’s ambitions she was stopping with her sacrifice, she stopped an invasion from the otherworld too.


Oruro: Yes, but even then…


Oruro: Not even a battle as gruesome as the Dogma War was enough to quell the lust for death and destruction of the powers beyond the rift.


Framboise sighs at the futility of it all.


Oruro: These ruins are testament enough to that, the work of some truly foolish humans…

And here’s where I’d like to pause and do a bit of backstory explanation which the game most assuredly does NOT do. I yanked this off a Level-5 approved Lore website hosted on Sony’s own Japanese PlayStation site. This entire area, Guido’s Hollow, is a really fucking obtuse attempt to actually tie the game to both the White Knight Chronicles Episode 0 prequel manga, and the White Knight Chronicles Origins PSP game, when previously it had been content to just ignore the both of them completely.

So, you see, “Guido’s Hollow” goes by another name, a name that would probably be a little more resonant to people who have played this game and paid attention to its batshit bonkers plot than “Guido’s Hollow” might. Because, you see, we just so happen to be in a little place called: “The Athwani Royal Palace”.

Yep.

Way to bury the goddamn lead, Level-5.

Don’t believe me? Here, I’ve got maps:





These two maps come from the White Knight Chronicles Origins game itself and the official site for White Knight Chronicles Episode 0, respectively. The first one shows the territory on Dogma Era Nadias claimed by Athwan and Yshrenia. Yshrenia lays claim to the eastern half of the continent, the territory that makes up Balandor, Nordia, Albana, Greede, and the Van Haven Waste on modern Nadias. While Athwan controls the frozen northwestern edge of the continent, ie: the spot we find Guido’s Hollow in at the end of the game here. And Faria, or rather, the land that would become Faria 10,000 years later, lies as neutral ground between both empires.

The Episode 0 map even identifies the fortress, which looks a lot like Guido’s Hollow, as the Athwani capital. It makes a similar point to pinpoint the location and name of Vellgander as Yshrenia’s capital as well. And what brief snippets I’ve seen in of the manga in my quest to supplement this chapter with everything that SHOULD have been included in it do indeed depict Vellgander as something very closely resembling the Lost City of Not Actually Appearing In This Game glimpsed in the post-game CG cutscene. So at least there’s that.

Before doing this, I was under the impression that the gulf between the PS3 and PSP games/manga was a complete continuity nightmare rather than just a major continuity nightmare. Way to go, Level-5! You successfully lowered my expectations!

Now, “who the fuck is Guido Kantarabe?” you’re asking, in between your usual chorus of “what the fuck am I still doing here?”s. Well, I will tell you.

According to Episode 0, Guido Kantabe was, in essence, Yshrenia’s Dr. Cid, a technological genius who forged their greatest mechanical accomplishments, namely the Knights (and monoships, the site makes a point of mentioning monships too!). Now why has the Athwani capital come to be known in the modern era as “Guido’s Hollow”? …I have no fucking idea! BUT! According to the sources I’ve read online, Guido apparently kind of had a little Oppenheimer moment when he saw all the atrocities Madoras was conducting with the Knights he’d created for him. He wanted the technology he’d spend all these long years of his life creating for Yshrenia to be put to a peaceful use, and was horrified that Madoras so quickly and easily perverted everything he made into weapons of war.

So then one day, during the height of the Dogma War, Guido defected from Yshrenia to Athwan, with the help of Wylde, the original Pactmaker of the White Knight before Leonard. But because this is White Knight Chronicles, and everyone who isn’t a villain or Orren is a shade of capital-I Incompetent, Athwan proved to be no safe harbour for him, and he was eventually captured by Madoras and imprisoned beyond the rift for all eternity. Wylde himself was later captured and executed by Madoras, who then instituted the policy of having infants with as-yet unformed conscious minds pilot the Knights rather than full-grown adult soldiers so as (in his diseased mind) to ensure their loyalty to Yshrenia.

Because THAT’s not explained in-game either.

Now, it’s not 100% confirmed or anything, but the fact that they share a last name lends some heavy credence to the idea that Oruro is a descendant of Guido’s. Again, this is never mentioned in-game, nor is the connection made, to my knowledge. It’s more of Akihiro Hino just plopping stuff down and going “eh, here’s this, you figure it out.”

Because this would be a really great character development and motivational piece here for this guy whom we’ve only met twice so far and had been kind of a standoffish dick to us. He’s a direct blood descendant of the man who cursed the world in the first place by bringing the Knights into existence. So he could be on a mission to defuse the threat of the Knights once and for all and finally make amends for the shame that has been looming over his family for 10,000 years now.

But nope. That’s not important enough to be mentioned anywhere in the game. You need to scour the Internet, buy a PSP game, and read a whole two-volume manga to get the whole story on what’s up with this one place and that one guy who appears for like ten minutes tops that’s actually very important to the lore of this whole series.

Jesus fucking Christ, Level-5, I came here to play a game about giant medieval fantasy robots, not go on a fucking scavenger hunt to make sense of your fucked up plot.

I’m starting to develop an irrational hatred of the number 5, just because it’s a part of Level-5’s company name.

Now, I’d be a little more forgiving if all these things were some after the fact retcon and what was on screen was originally all there was to be had before another author expanded upon it. But no, Episode 0 was published online for free 15 days before the original White Knight Chronicles was. In 2008. This Avatar Story chapter came out in August 2011.

Level-5 had a three year cushion to reconcile it’s pre-published prequel with its central installment, and it failed. Good fucking god, it failed.

That’s like if Star Trek: First Contact was still about the Enterprise crew travelling back in time to ensure Earth’s first warp drive flight was a success like history records it being, only no mention is made of Zefram Cochrane, nor does the man himself appear in the movie despite being a Pretty Big Lore Thing in the world of Star Trek for the 30 years in between then and when he first appeared in the Original Series and was explicitly called out as being the man who invented warp drive and flew Earth’s first warp-powered flight.

Is this stupidity, or laziness? YOU DECIDE!

But alas, I’ve done this game’s job enough in the exposition department for now, let’s see what little it has left to say for itself now.


Oruro: And it would seem perhaps, that their invasion was not averted after all, merely delayed. They bided their time, waiting ten millennia—however long it took—until the seal was broken and the Knights awoke once more, and their conduit to this world was restored.
Orren: I blame Cisna for this.
Framboise: Um, hello! You’re the only one left with an active Knight anymore.
Orren: And who’s fault was THAT? I didn’t ask for this… though it’s sure made life a shitton more easy for me. Plus, they seem to be coming and going using that red core you seem intent on hanging onto more than anything.

Seriously, the Arc Knight is a non-entity in this game, so there’s no fucking way that Level-5 would turn around and point the finger at you the player and go “THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!”, even though it would not surprise me if they did, given how much they hate their playerbase.


A swirling cloud of dark magic bullshit begins to form in the POV shot overhead.




CUTSCENE MUSIC: “Tense Battle” (Disc 1, Track 30)

Framboise: Master! Watch out!


And here’s our arbitrary boss battle for this chapter, an Ifreet. Or rather, the Ifreet bounty pallet swap Agni.




Oruro dives out of the way…


And Agni crashes down right on top of him anyway. So long you useless geriatric tool!


No, I’m kidding, he survives. But it would be completely in this game’s wheelhouse for him to up and die after only telling barely half a story that would have made the world a little more interesting.




Oruro: Ugh!




Agni roars, and its boss fight time. See you in 23 screenshots.
















































Oruro: Impossible! There are still active traps in these ruins? How foolish we’ve been.
Framboise: Master, are you hurt?
Oruro: Just a pain in my lower back, but I’ve always had that. You have nothing to worry about, my dear Framboise.




And from there, we transition to the rest of this update’s “story”, as everyone gathers around the big giant gate in the far hall.




The old fart comes to a halt before it.


Oruro: What’s the status of the gate?


Aide: Power output’s still fluctuating. I doubt we’re going to stabilize it anytime soon, unfortunately. If you send anyone through now, we can’t guarantee that they’ll be coming back.
Oruro: …I see.




CUTSCENE MUSIC: “Scar” (Disc 2, Track 13)

Oruro: Everyone! Listen to me. We have enjoyed 10,000 years of a false peace. Our world stands upon the brink once again, about to be torn asunder by the powers of the other world.


Oruro: We have only one chance to overcome this crisis.


Oruro: We must venture into the other world, and seal the gate shut once and for all from their side.


Oruro: Orren, my lad… Will you do this for me?
Orren: Um, what the fuck? THIS is your brilliant plan? Trying to talk someone else into a suicide mission, someone you’ve only known for like an hour, while you stay here out of danger and hope for the best? You’re a… Just... Just… Shit. A big old shit.


Oruro: It’s risky, and not within my right to ask, I know, but the power you possess puts you on an even footing with them.


Framboise: Master! Y-you can’t! Please don’t— I-I’ll go through the rift along with Orren! Do not try to stop me, Master. I'll help him put an end to this all once and for all.
Orren: I don’t believe this shit… But thanks, anway…


Oruro: What?! Why would you throw your life away like that? You have so much to live for still.
Orren: What? And I DON’T?! You’re a massive, giant, motherfucking PLANETARY-sized prick.


And yet, Orren steps up regardless.


Orren: I’m not doing this for you. Or for your beliefs. Or for Cisna. Or Mureas. Or any other bullshit thing related to the Dogma Era. I’m doing this to be done with this bullshit, one way or another. Whatever I find on the other side of that rift, I’m ramming my Knight’s hammer clean through it and sealing that portal, and then, then, so help me gods…


Orren: I’m coming back here for you.


And then the shot transitions between Orren and Framboise, in a way that means… Fuck me, I don’t know.


It’s not like that one at the end of the storyline that crossfaded between Cisna and Grazel to symbolize that they were the two key players of the game’s plot and their war was finally coming to a personal head, but whatever.


Maybe it’s to symbolise their solidarity. Who knows.




Oruro: Uugh… I suppose it’s no use arguing with you. It never really was, in hindsight. You were always the most stubborn of pupils.


Oruro: Well, Sir Cyrus, it looks like you won our little bet.
Orren: You were BETTING on her sacrificing herself too?! Motherfuckshitcocker! Is “Kantarabe” Yshrenian for “Un-Self-Aware Shart”?!


Oruro: What a strange conundrum it is, to see that the powers of the past are the only hope to save the world from a threat long-thought passed as well.
Orren: Yes. Welcome to two fucking years ago. You stated the thesis of this whole damn shitshow. You get a gold star.
Oruro: Do we deserve to be entrusted with the future of this world?
Orren: You? Personally? No. FUCK no.


Cyrus: My troops will stand watch over the ruins while Orren and Framboise are inside the rift.
Oruro: Indeed. It’s only a matter of time before they detect our presence here and send more monsters through to try and stop us.


Oruro: If we are going to succeed here today, we cannot yield these ruins to them. We must stand and fight, at all costs.
Orren: Well, okay then, as long are you’re facing the possibility of a gruesome death too, then suddenly I’m okay with this.


Framboise: But Master…
Oruro: Don’t you worry about me, my dear. You just focus on getting back safely with Orren. Best of luck then, to all of us.




Framboise: Understood.


Framboise: Though, if we don’t make it out of this alive, I just wanted to say that— That— After all these years…
Oruro: Hmm?
Framboise: You’re an asshole. A gigantic, rotting asshole.
Orren: Atta girl!



What else could you do at that point, other than find small solace in that it would soon be over, for real this time.

Everything hinged on one final fight.

I was just gonna dig until I hit daylight.


GUIDO'S HOLLOW & IDEYA'S THRONE