Part 6

Cave Shadow: When the King proposes, he disposes. It doesn't matter much if you understand or not. We don't do subtlety here. We don't eat on silver platters.

Leila's Shadow: Oh those screams, I can still hear those screams. You prevent me from killing him, but not to endure him. I was thirteen. True, what does it matter?


Cave Shadow: Does it mean anything anymore? You are dispossessed of everything—a figurine, a figure or a ghost, you drag your absence from hallway to hallway, mumbling your solitude. You are deprived of everything; what do you have left?

Frida: I have a great deal left. You are unwise to mock one of the Volur like this, shadow.

Cave Shadow: What a pity.

Cave Shadow: You would have to die, to pay for your faults.

[If you make liberal use of Escape, the Man is easy to avoid, since his attacks only have a range of two squares. Plus, if you step on the white tiles next to one of the two friendly shadows, they transport you back to the middle, allowing you to have him fall far behind chasing you. Just make sure to avoid all the traps and not get trapped in a corner, and you're good.]




Cave Shadow: It is your duty. It is your punishment. You are guilty. Guilty of provocation. Guilty of love. You are guilty.

Cave Shadow: Don't pretend to be innocent. We know. We have smelled you, when he comes home at night, in his house. We have felt your need, your quivering when he leaves in the morning.

Cave Shadow: Is the Beast satiated? Is it satiated now?

Anna-Liisa's Shadow: Why should I regress to the animals' level? Why should I be guilty for being forced to serve, for serving a King who was never a Prince, a Prince who never walked without crutches, an obese animal who we continue to feed? Why would I, when I am not even Queen, endure the wrath of an usurper?


Cave Shadow: Yes, I am going mad, and I will destroy it all, and there will be nothing left, and our paths, our paths we shall take for lack of better recourse...

Cave Shadow: Yes, I am going mad, raging mad, raging cold, I am going mad, I am becoming something else, I want to be something else... Our existence was denied too many times, we will all become mad, all of us, all mad, and since might is what is needed, we will become might...

Frida: Be at peace, spirits. I will not deny your existence any longer. I understand now.

Cave Shadow: I don't know what I am saying anymore. I must be delirious. Why does it matter? Let's put an end to this.


Anna-Liisa's Shadow: Thus we shall kill. We shall be worse than animals. We shall be men.

Leila's Shadow: Thus we shall kill.


Frida: No, it is I who am your servant, holy one. Is it truly your will that I should kill this man?



Whispering Voice:
“I remember these nameless female warriors
From these who choose the fate of those who will be killed,
She, who is not yet, commands the first crime.
And all those who follow, from me, received a name.”

Maid's Shadow: Since the Queen is imprisoned; since the Queen has gone mad; since the Queen cannot kill you by her own hand. Since the Queen is dead, deep down inside herself.

Since we cannot be more than animals, we shall be men.

Since the King is no more, there will be no more Queen. Since there are no more Princes, I shall make Princesses.

I am the Maid, the Queen's Servant. I am the one who kills, when the Queen cannot.

I am all that is left.


[Just continue avoiding the man, trying to keep him close to the Maid's Shadow. Every two turns, she'll use Assassination for a huge chunk of his HP.]


[Just a misspelling of Cynicism. Frida isn't all that cynical really, but the bonus to Humor will reduce damage by a lot, and this is a prerequisite for a really awesome skill I want. I also missed showing the skill I got from level 8, I think:

[We don't have The Wall yet, but the other two benefits are worth it on their own.]


[The negatives in parentheses are from Augmented Reality.]


[If we had taken anything but the full dose, we would be able to leave the Seid by talking to Leila's Shadow. But nope, we're too fucked up for that. You miss out on a nice chunk of xp by skipping the hard road, but you also skip some of the more annoying encounters of the prologue.]


[Instead, we must speak to Anna-Liisa's Shadow and go full Inception on this shit.]


[The golden flame, or “Luminary”, moves two squares every turn. If you don't end your turn next to it when it casts Gleam, you'll take damage from the Darkness debuff.]







[Part II is the same, only now there is an enemy called Nothingness in your way. It's mainly there to smack you down if you try to dash for the green tiles without following the Luminary.]




[This time, the Luminary marks out its entire path to the exit, but then disappears. You have to remember where it went, or take damage and lose movement points. Luckily, there's a little room for error, because I fucked it up and still won.]



[Here is the full solution:
]


[In this encounter, you have to reach the Luminary as soon as you can, or the Darkness debuff will do its usual nastiness to you. Once you reach it, another appears, and you have to get to that one. There is a third and final one, which, of course, starts all the way opposite from the direction you have to go to get to the second one. This encounter can be really tricky, but anything that heals you, reduces damage, or increases your movement will help.]




[This one, despite the intimidating number of Ancient Lights, is actually much easier than the last one, in my experience. You just have to survive for ten rounds, with Repulsion and Anticipation being very useful, as usual.]









[The skill you get is different, and which battle you receive it in is different, depending on which class you play. You only get to use it once in the encounter, so save this one until the second part of this battle. Trust me.]


[This battle isn't hard, but it is a pain in the ass. Every turn, the black Negations take 250 damage, but also every turn the yellow lights cast a spell that heals them for the same amount out in four straight lines from their position. So you have to use a combination of Repulsion and physically standing in the way of the healing spell (which hurts you, of course), to make sure the Negations don't receive their healing and die. If you have any “summoning” spells, they help out a lot here. We don't yet, but I'm working on it. The one I have in mind is worth the wait.]


(As Frida starves the Negations of their healing, a shadow begins to form farther in the cave...)


Anna-Liisa's Shadow: Were you really born, Frida? Were you really born one day?

What do we owe our parents? What do we do, us parents, for our children, and what should we do? Did we just spread the Holy on top of the dirt?


(A strange barrier also begins to take shape around the shadow, which is gradually coalescing into a humanoid form.)

Maid's Shadow: One needs only so little, at times, to exist. The love of a mother, even from afar, would suffice to give birth. You know that, and yet, you refuse to accept it.

Let the light get in, at last, in this tomb. Let the light get in, and listen to its words.






(Once all the Negations have dissolved, the flames change color, and then rush into Frida. It is more shocking than painful, like swallowing cold water when one expected warm.)



(A flame also envelopes the child.)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1a...v9Zmk7&index=15
(Souvenir Combat alt)


[Every turn, the Child uses Blame, which does base damage equal to your max life. You get a “free” revival three times, but you have to survive six turns to get 100%. And you can actually survive seven turns and get 105%, but I haven't managed to do that yet. I don't think you miss anything truly important though.

Anyway, you can get that damage down a lot by using Avatar of Urd, plus multiple castings of Anticipation on the child. Combined, it's possible to get the damage down to zero. But they don't last forever.]




[You can also avoid the damage for two of those rounds by using Betrayal, since the Child can't move.]

(As the child speaks, Frida stands motionless, her mouth gaping slightly. It feels like she has heard the voice before...)

The Child's Shadow: Don't run away from me, now that you've set me free. If I've hurt you, ever, it was not intended. I can't just leave again, and dissolve underground.

The Child's Shadow: Am I really so frightening? Am I so difficult? That seeing me alive would be just too painful?

The Child's Shadow: Don't make me go now, I beg you. I was waiting for you. I waited for your lips to finally name me. I waited for my life, my life along with your words.

The Child's Shadow: Come back to me, my blood, my love, my mother... Protect me at last from all my misery.

The Child's Shadow: If you forget me again, what will I become?

The Child's Shadow: What will I become...

Frida: I will not forget you, child. I will carry your memory wherever I roam. I swear it.




… the same uniform color, the same smell of dust.

“It's the gray, Dad. It's the gray of dawn.

“This is what you left me. Letters on my doorstep. Nights without sand. Children lost in the shadow of others. That is what is left to me. What will I do with that? Where shall I drag my feet, like a sick little girl? Nothing awaits me here any longer; nothing awaits outside, in this village to which I am invisible, in this village that has ceased to protect me from anything.

“I am going to leave. I am going to wander and get lost, far away from here. I am going to flee and never come back for centuries on end, until I can be strong, until I can be old, until I can finally bear their smile.

I am going to leave.

I am going to leave.”