Keep Wishing You Were Me, and I'll Keep Making You Have To. Let's Play Cassette Beasts!

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Part 17: Hello Darkness, Say Goodbye


Music: Night's Bridge Station
Where was I? Oh, right. The end.

Befitting the final dungeon, Night's Bridge Station has a foggy, ethereal quality, where the platform rises to meet the characters' feet as they proceed inward, giving it a feel like no other location in the game.


...until we get inside and everything is more or less the same as every other station. Oh well.


I can even fast-travel back here if I want. Magikrab warns that the train arriving at platform B is due to depart for other realities soon, so hop to it.


The gate to platform B is closed, so only the paths to the left and right are available.


The path is winding, floating in the darkness, with the occasional magnetic switch here and there. Fountesses and Queenyxes clog the paths.


At the end of the winding path is the magnetic cube. Dropped onto each switch, it provides a more direct path back to the start,


up until I reach the first switch, where the path branches off in a new direction.


Oh. I guess the sigil on top of the coffin is how the player is supposed to connect Mordred's appearance to that tapestry I saw back in Amber Lodge.




At the end of the path is a Rogue Fusion in front of a locked chest.


There is nothing noteworthy about the Rogue Fusion,


but the chest contents are a new thing.

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Off to the right from the main lobby, then.


It's another winding path, but I have Averevoir Flight, so I don't actually have to follow it if I don't wanna.


The giant clock hands thing always throws me. Do I vine katamari my way around? I can never remember, whenever I replay the game. Turns out the little blue spot on the minute hand is magnetic, and that's the trick. Magnet up, then start flying around, almost miss the platform to the right and vine katamari to stick to the side and roll over to the top.


Okay, that took an almost-as-embarrassingly-long as the Magikrab statue puzzle back in Waterloop. Let's see what's in this reward chest, eh?


ayfkm.jpg


At the end is another Rogue Fusion and another locked chest.


Kingnyx manages to Gambit up and OHKO two monsters but eh. "The Fusion Rolled a 20 and a critical hit on Damage Roll!" is certainly a highlight while playing but in retrospect doesn't warrant a series of screenshots.


The reward is another of the same.


Gotta head back to Harbourtown to rest up and repair those two tapes who got Damage Roll'd. This means Gramophone Cafe, which means I walk into another partner conversation.

Eugene: ...So you're a dog.
Barkley: Arf!
Eugene: ...But you can use a cassette player to transform into monsters like the rest of us.
Barkley: Arf arf!
Eugene: Are you some kind of... magical talking dog? From another world?
Barkley: Arf!
Eugene: Hmm. I guess not.

Enlightening.

While I'm resting and swapping tapes into my party, I'll check the stickers on my tapes.
Ramtasm gets to be a full-on attacker. Smack, Galactic Beatdown, the Old 1-2, and Last Rites, Battering Ram for the accuracy debuff. Neutralise and Shear Luck might help Ramtasm stay standing.
Kayleigh's Decibelle gets Spit, Sonicboom, and Headshot. Unicast is my old standby for bosses, and while I don't think Echolocation is going to be particularly useful I forget if the last gauntlet has any mass battles. Neutralise and AP Starter run support.
Fire-bootleg Triphinx is a one-trick pony, all it has is a couple AP Starters to power Wonderful 7 for its first turn. Each AP Starter is a rare that gives a boost to Speed and Evasion per empty slot, so I leave a couple of its sticker slots empty for those boosts.
Capricorpse brings Coal Story, Mountain Smash, and a copy of Battering Ram for the lasting debuffs. Neutralise, Shear Luck, and Metal Resistance might help keep it alive, but there's Vengeful Curse just in case they don't.
Gumbaal runs a rare Roll Again that gives me an extra effect chance per empty slot, so I leave it with Coal Story and Bon Bon Blast to keep the status effect procs going, ideally for free at the end of each turn.
And with Ramtasm, Capricorpse, and Gumbaal might lead you to believe I'll bring Miasmodeus, but nope! I've got Mardiusa filling my poison-type slot. AP Starter and AP Refund provide enough energy to fuel two moves a turn with Two Heads. No way I can use Last Rites with Two Heads, so I settle for the much cheaper Toxic Stab and Bite (backed up by Carnivore).


Back to Night's Bridge, slot those two Azure Keystones into the two brobdingnagian sword sculptures in the lobby.


Prompt: Once you go beyond, you might not be able to come back for a little while. Are you fully prepared? Would you like to save first?

I just went through all the custom preparation I did, yeah, let's roll.

Kayleigh: We've come so far, snalligator...


And one by one, all my partners join us in the lobby, ready to wrap this up.

Meredith: You weren't planning on leaving me behind - were you, mate?
Eugene: One last leap into the unknown, right? Badass!
Felix: I gotta be here for this.
Viola: If this is to be our final act, then let it be done together!

and finally

Barkley: Arf!

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Kayleigh: That MUST be the doorway...
Meredith: This is it, right?
Eugene: Momentous!
Felix: So we're assuming this giant triangle is the doorway, right?
Viola: Such a sight...

and finally

Barkley: *pant pant*


Music: Aleph Encounter
Aleph floats to the center of the room from where he entered behind us.

Aleph: THAT OLD WITCH REALLY HID THIS PLACE WELL. DID YOU KNOW THIS WHOLE RAILWAY IS ANOTHER ONE OF US "ARCHANGELS"? THE MER-LINE, WE CALL IT. YOUR WHOLE "ISLAND" LIES ATOP ITS BACK. IT'S A REAL LABYRINTH DOWN HERE! I NEVER WOULD HAVE FOUND THE CHAMBER WITHOUT YOU GUYS, SERIOUSLY.
Prompt: "Is 'that old witch' Morgante?" / "Did Morgante hide this place?"
Aleph: ... I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU KNOW THAT NAME. YOU'RE SMARTER THAN YOU LOOK, FRIEND. THE OLD WITCH HAD ME TRAPPED IN THESE TUNNELS FOR A LONG TIME, BUT I WON OUT EVENTUALLY. I ALWAYS DO.
Prompt: "What do you want?" / "What are you plotting?"
Aleph: SUCH AN ACCUSATORY TONE! WE'RE TRYING TO MAINTAIN A POSITIVE ATMOSPHERE HERE, FRIENDS! WHY, ALL I WANT IS TO LEAVE THROUGH THAT DOORWAY RIGHT THERE! SPEAKING OF FRIENDS...

Any of the other Archangels that haven't been defeated and subsequently collected by Aleph don't show here. Aleph always has at least a few on his team, since it's impossible to enter Night's Bridge without visiting the Amber Lodge first, and that requires defeating four Archangels. Even if the player happens across the location and trigger to open the way to Night's Bridge before Aleph throws them into the dead world, the ingame player character doesn't know that entering a mirror is a thing that's possible to do until they leave Amber Lodge.

Kayleigh: Oh no...
Meredith: Uh-oh...
Eugene: ...Oh.
Felix: ...Huh.
Viola: I see...

and finally

Barkley: Arf...?

Aleph: Y'SEE, I USED TO BE KIND OF A brobdingnagian SHOT. MY OLD CREW AND I HAD SOMETHING OF AN ARRANGEMENT WITH YOUR LOT. A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP. EVEN IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW IT. I HAVE A LOT OF RESPECT FOR YOU HUMANS! WITHOUT YOU, WE WOULDN'T EXIST!


Aleph: YOU HUMANS LIVE ON YOUR LITTLE WORLDS AND YOU INVENT ALL THESE CUTE IDEAS. LOVE, DEATH, WHATEVER... YOUR MOST POWERFUL THOUGHTS WOULD BRING US TO LIFE, AND IN RETURN WE'D TRAVEL TO YOUR WORLDS AND ACT OUT WHATEVER FANTASIES YOU CONCOCTED FOR US!
ADVENTURES... WARS... EXTINCTION EVENTS... YOU PEOPLE LOVE THAT STUFF THE MOST, AND SO DO I!

So I mentioned it in passing before, and nobody stresses the idea before this point as much as Gwen does in the DLC, but yeah. The Archangels are all a sort of tulpa embodying a concept of human culture.

Poppetox, the incarnation of puppetry, born of "humanity's desire to create simulacra of themselves". Uh... okay.
Nowhere Monarch, the incarnation of consumerism, "born of mankind's collective dedication to entertainment and media above all else".
Mourningstar, the formed from "the devotion to the many gods and idols that humanity creates and worships"
Robin Goodfellow, the incarnation of theatrics, though the game notes he's the only one with a definitive origin thanks to Billy Shakes.
Mammon, the incarnation of capitalism, "formed by the countless worlds where society values monetary gain over all else, even human suffering". Scary to think of how many alternate worlds out there have also been destroyed by Reaganomics, isn't it?
Babelith, the incarnation of ignorance, "born from mankind's uncanny ability to reject truth out of fear, discomfort, and ego".
Alice, the incarnation of ego, "born of mankind's deep well of selfish thinking". Presumably gets along well with Babelith.
Heckahedron, the incarnation of mathematics, "born when humanity reached an age of hubristic scientific and mathematical thinking".
Lamento Mori, the incarnation of the fear of death.
And Gwen, as previously mentioned back when she revealed herself as an Archangel, is the incarnation of illusion.

Aleph: UNFORTUNATELY MY OLD BAND GOT A TAD DYSFUNCTIONAL AND HAD TO SPLIT. SO I'VE BEEN OUT OF THE SCENE FOR A LITTLE WHILE. BUT NOW WE'RE BACK IN ACTION!
Kayleigh: So you and the Archangels are going to... invade worlds, and act out the violent myths that inspire your creation?
Meredith: That's pretty worrying.
Eugene: An endless cycle of violence...
Felix: Yeah, that doesn't sound great.
Viola: Such dark desires cannot be allowed to be realised!

and finally

Barkley: Grrrrr...



Aleph: HEY, DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT, FRIENDS! WE'RE ALL ON THE SAME PAGE HERE. YOU WANT OFF THIS BACKWATER WORLD. AND SO DO WE. IN FACT, I'LL MAKE YOU A DEAL!
Prompt: "A deal?" / "What are your terms?"
Aleph: WE CAN ALL GO OUR SEPARATE WAYS, AND WE'LL NEVER VISIT ANY OF YOUR WORLDS. YOU'LL NEVER SEE US AGAIN. WHAT DO YOU SAY?
Prompt: "What?" / "No deal!"
Aleph: WE'LL CONQUER OTHER PEOPLES' WORLDS, AND LEAVE YOURS ALONE.
Kayleigh: All people have value, no matter what world they're from! All we can do is do our best to help them!
Aleph: BUT WE'RE NOT GONNA MESS WITH YOUR REALITIES! WOULD YOU REALLY RISK YOUR VERY LIVES... TO HELP PEOPLE YOU'VE NEVER EVEN MET?
Prompt: "Yes." / "Of course."
Aleph: FINE. FINE! YOU'RE BEING REALLY UNCOOPERATIVE RIGHT NOW. I'M JUST GONNA KILL YOU ALL AND GET ON OUT OF HERE, ALRIGHT?


No avoiding this.

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Music: Deus Ex Calibur
Aleph: YOU PEOPLE CREATED US, AND NOW YOU WANT TO KILL US? MAKE UP YOUR MINDS!


God bless 'er, she's tryin'.


You know the last boss is gonna have its own set of unique moves, right? Death By 1000 Cuts hits twice for... kind of piddling damage, honestly?


Aleph's gimmick is that shared by, uh, the rando bootleg Pawndead I got way back when. Or any clown from Honk Heaven DLC. He's got Prismatic! So he's constantly shifting type throughout the fight.


Being an Archangel, Aleph gradually accumulates AP each round and doesn't spend any of them to use his not-Angelic-Attack moves. There's nothing stopping Aleph from using Death By 10,000 Cuts every turn, which hits three times. (For twice as much damage here, but I think that's more due to Aleph having given himself a Melee Attack buff in the meantime -- Triphinx has higher Melee Defense than Ramtasm.)


Wonderful 7 doesn't get anything better than Confuse, but I'm pretty sure over the next couple of turns it has Aleph do a random move out of his moveset instead of his Angelic Attack.


Though I will grant that giving him an extra turn to reapply his Melee Attack boost may not have been to my benefit.


That's a lot of status icons. He's still got leftover contact damage from using Sharp Edges while he was an air-type. He's still Confused from Wonderful 7, still got the Melee Attack buff from Sharpen. He's been burned by Coal Story, given an Astral Coating on account of landing another Wonderful 7 while he had turned into a glitter-type, poison from the Wonderful 7 itself, and now Berserked because Gumbaal's Bon Bon Blast is metal damage to an astral type. Bon Bon Blast doesn't proc the Accuracy debuff, since as an Archangel Aleph is immune to direct stat-down statuses.


I didn't want to give Aleph any AP Boosts from further Wonderful 7, now that he's an astral-type, so I swap out. Mardiusa doesn't have the sturdiness that Triphinx does, but it's at full health, I'm sure it'll be--


...



It'll be the fight with Gwen all over again, is what it'll be.


Gonna need a little better than that, RNG.


It's a tough call. I don't want to give him an AP Boost to let him do Deus Ex Calibur again, but I'm not going to win by direct damage here. I need to keep Poison and Burn going to chip Aleph down if I'm going to have any hope of victory at all.


In fact, Kayleigh and Aleph manage to accrue 10 AP at the same time. It's do or die!




It is not lost on me that the battle came down to whether or not I could fire a shot at Aleph's most distinguishing feature. Lucky me it hit him and didn't just pass through his face into another dimension, huh?


Down to the wire, but I made it. That's it! It's over!

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It's not over.

Aleph: EVERYONE, GET BACK ON THE TRAIN! WE'RE LEAVING!


The Mer-Line turns on its... hey what is the brobdingnagian rotating platform that lets trains change directions called. A railway turntable? Uh, okay. My, how the turntables have... uh... look, you see what's going on. The Mer-Line is facing into the portal out of New Wirral, as shimmering and triangular as Aleph's own face.


Aleph: OUR NEXT DESTINATION IS: ANYWHERE WE WANT!
Kayleigh: snalligator, quick!






There's not much of an establishing shot, but we're on the back of the Mer-Line, hurtling through the void with the multicolored lines that indicates travel between universes. We saw it in the intro, we saw it at the halfway point when Aleph flung me into a dead world, stands to reason we end it here too.

Kayleigh: I've seen these lights before... when I first arrived in New Wirral.

Kayleigh spells it out for anyone who hadn't caught on.

Aleph: YOU KNOW, I THOUGHT I UNDERSTOOD EVERYTHING THERE WAS TO KNOW ABOUT THE COSMOS... BUT YOUR "FUSION" TRICK IS SOMETHING I'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE.


Aleph: PERHAPS IT WOULD MAKE FOR A GOOD TEAM-BUILDING EXERCISE?




As appropriate, any Archangels not previously defeated will not show up for this bit, since Aleph didn't find them and "recruit" them. If they're not here, then Aleph won't have whatever parts of them amalgamated into Aelph Null.

Aleph Null: I TAKE BACK MY OFFER.
I WILL VISIT YOUR REALITY FIRST. I CAN SMELL ITS SCENT ON YOU... AN UNBLEMISHED TIMELINE, ALREADY ON A PATH TOWARDS DESTRUCTION. WHAT A MARVELLOUS PLAYTHING IT SHALL BE.


My gang's all here, too. Music: Title Theme, oddly easygoing for facing down a reality-bending abomination in the space between dimensions, but there it is.

Eugene: This is it, snalligator!
Felix: Let's go! I'm ready if you are, snalligator!
Viola: Very well!

and finally

Barkley: Arf! Arf!
Kayleigh: Do you have one last fight in you, snalligator?


Aleph is, as described, the incarnation of conquest. Gwen hinted at it a little, saying that raiding and destroying realities is just what the guy does, can't resist doing it any more than I can resist breathing. And yes, in the Arthurian-legend motif the game follows, this is Arthur himself. The devs admitted they didn't like the idea of their villain being the "one true king" part of Arthurian myth, so they dressed him as a redcoat and made him a conqueror. So in an extradiagetic sense, Aleph is the incarnation of British colonialism.

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Music: Arrow of Time
I left everyone with their starter equipped when they left the party, so everyone's got their default monster here. The first time I played the game I had swapped Fungogh off of Felix in favor of Shining Kuneko, then took Shining Kuneko with me when I dismissed Felix from the party. So in the climactic final battle, Felix heroically showed up and heroically transformed into a heroic Carniviper.


Everyone not in the party is AI-controlled, so they tend to burn through their AP on whatever moves they can afford at the time. Viola uses Icicle Dart, Barkley and Eugene stick with Energy Shot, Felix alternates between Smack and Copper Chop.


Aleph Null gets two moves per turn, which is only a surprise because he doesn't get three. His movepool is any attack in the game that has a nonzero attack power. He seems to have a preference for Shield Bash, but also throws out Zoomies and Stab in the Dark over the next few turns.

Aleph: YOU WISH TO WAGE WAR WITH ME? HOW FITTING.


Wearing him down, bit by bit. As can be expected he's got some pretty good defense and tons of HP.

Aleph: MAN'S GREATEST WISH IS TO DESTROY ITSELF. I CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN, AGAIN AND AGAIN.


As far as I can tell, both Aleph's movepool and his targeting are random. Clockwork Mouse is a plastic-type move, so the ideal target for it would be Ramtasm... but he hits Robindam instead.


Targeting Ramtasm also would have avoided a counterattack.








"Arrow of Time" cuts out. No more cassettes, no more background music.

Aleph Null: YOU ARE NOT BEASTS. YOU ARE MERELY HUMAN.

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Prompt: "Are you here to mock me?" / "What do you want?"

IN THIS MOMENT, WE HAVE A SHARED GOAL. ALEPH IS THE INCARNATION OF CONQUEST. AND I AM THE INCARNATION OF REBELLION.
SO I NEED YOU TO UNDERSTAND.

Prompt: "Understand what?" / "What are you talking about?"

YOU HUMANS CREATE US WITH YOUR DREAMS AND IDEALS. THE POTENTIAL ENERGY OF MANKIND IS LIMITLESS.
THESE "CASSETTES" ARE MERELY TALISMANS.
THE ABILITY TO MANIFEST YOUR WILL TO ALTER REALITY... TO CHANGE YOUR WORLD, AND YOURSELVES... THAT LIES WITHIN YOU.
SO WAKE UP, ALREADY!


Music: Arrow of Time, reprise
Well, I just got a reminder from the unknowable monster that's been in the back of my head for the whole game that I've had an unknowable monster in the back of my head for the whole game.

Aleph Null: WHY?! WHY DO YOU PERSIST?!
Prompt: "Because it is my will!" / "Because I'm not out of ideas yet!" / "Because that's what people do!"
Kayleigh: One shared goal, that's all it takes!


And Kayleigh fuses, without transforming into a monster first.

Meredith: LET'S KICK HIS brobdingnagian STUPID HEAD IN!

And Meredith fuses as well.

Eugene: WE RISE TOGETHER!
Felix: Here goes nothing...
Viola: Come! This tale shall end on our terms!

Eugene, Felix, and Viola each fuse after their own lines. And finally...

Barkley: AWOOO!


It takes all of us together, but Morgante is whole once more.

Aleph Null: AH, THE OLD WITCH. YOU ARE FOREVER A THORN IN MY SIDE, AREN'T YOU?




Morgante Gestalt has her own moves, from the collective will of all her human (and dog) component parts. $playername's Conviction replaces Smack or Spit as the cheap move. Barkley's Energy hits with 60 power and grants AP Boost. Eugene's Courage hits with 60 power and grants defense boosts. Felix's Creativity hits a whole team with power 60, which is odd since there's only one target in this fight. Meredith's Wit hits with power 60 and gives attack boosts. Viola's Determination hits with power 60 and grants an Evasion boost. Kayleigh's Melody is passive, and revives just in case Aleph Null manages to KO Morgante Gestalt at any point.

But he won't.

Because Morgante Gestalt still has Coda Morgana. Coda Morgana is still attack power 9999999. It's an instant "I win" button.

So this fight goes two ways. Use Barkley's Energy, then $playername's Conviction until Morgante Gestalt has enough AP to fire off Coda Morgana. Also an option: the items menu is still available. Start the final climactic clash between these mortal enemies by doing this

but with a can of iced coffee.


I let them scrap. I'm sure Morgante has a lot of pent-up stress to let out. Aleph Null manages to accrue 10 AP, and uses his Angelic Move: any Angelic Move chosen randomly from those of his component parts. He should have stuck with Deus Ex Calibur, because Mammon's Market Crash can barely scratch Morgante Gestalt.

Aleph also attacks with Pole Vault Assault, Lightning Bolt, Icicle Dart, and, uh... Spit. Morgante Gestalt barely notices.


Heads or tails, kneel before me


Rail or hail, I'll be set free


The finest stage to be winning on


We'll see


It's the same old story.

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Morgante, shattered again for some reason: YOUR WILL PROVED STRONGER THAN YOUR MORTAL CONSTRAINTS. LET THAT BE A LESSON FOR YOU, HUMAN.
FAREWELL.


The most anticlimactic friggin' reward for defeating the final storyline boss. I also got some experience, so that Mardiusa got a sticker for Sharpen and Capricorpse picked up Critical AP. And a Fused Material! Woo!
Let's get offa this train we're on.


Kayleigh: Sorry your cassette player was destroyed, snalligator... Luckily I always keep a spare on me!


So there's no postgame "Freed of the constraints of the useless talisman, you're free to record and transform without consuming items or anything" plotline or anything. Final battle's over, here's your thing back, status quo restored.
Yes Aleph also broke Kayleigh's cassette player so if she had only one spare, one of us is still without until we can report back to Harbourtown and requisition a new one. And it's not clear if Aleph also broke everyone else's. Does Kayleigh just carry a bag full of extra cassette players, just in case? This also raises some questions for how Ianthe recorded and transformed into a monster for the first time, that I'm pretty sure we'll never get answered.


Music: Back to plain ol' Night's Bridge Station




Ms. Amber: Don't go worryin' about me! The name's Ms. Amber. snalligator and I are friends - isn't that right, sugar?

Sure thing. What's shakin, bacon?

Ms. Amber: Why, I'm just here to make sure you find folks don't go hurtin' yourself. Though it look slike you gave our mutual friend a mighty beating already. That's a first!

Well, it was mostly Morgante.

Prompt: "Beating? I think we destroyed him." / "You're talking like he's still alive."
Ms. Amber: Folks like Aleph and I ain't flesh and blood, sugar. It takes an idea to die for us not to be able to come back in some form. He runs on conquest. If you humans keep findin' ways to kill each other, I'm sure he'll reform eventually. Though he might be out of action for quite some time...
Kayleigh: You're another Archangel...
Ms. Amber: Relax, red. I'm a friend. Besides, you might need some guidance with that doorway home, don't you think?

It's not explicitly said what the Amber Lodge is the incarnation of, but it's basically a TARDIS so I guess it's the one to talk to about traveling between universes.

Kayleigh: T-This really can take us back to our own worlds? Brilliant! I should let the rangers know before we go!
Ms. Amber: snalligator, you don't have to leave right now... But when you're ready, come speak to me.

Yeah, this is brobdingnagian news. We can't leave until we tell other people it's here. And, uh, that means you might be busy figuring out where people are supposed to go for a little while, Ms. Amber.


Leader Ianthe: Hey, snalligator. Something on your mind?
Prompt: "I've found the way home!"
Leader Ianthe: Is that so? Tell me everything.

Fade to black, fade in some time later.

Leader Ianthe: I see. So there's a train station called Night's Bridge that houses a magic mirror portal. The stations themselves are part of one giant Archangel... Also there's a building that wears the avatar of a woman, and a taking Traffikrab who will help us find our way down there...
Kayleigh: That's about the gist of it.
Leader Ianthe: snalligator, Kayleigh, if it was anyone else telling me this I'd be very worried! But since it's you, I take this seriously. I'll have someone sent down there right away.
Honestly, I never thought this day would come. Of course, I've discussed this possibility with my captains before. We have fully-formed plans for all kinds of chance events... But now we can finally start to put them into motion. Most new arrivals will want to leave immediately. The rangers will guide them to "Night's Bridge', of course. Much of Harbourtown has been here a long time, though. People have found partners, settled down, started families... There won't be a mass exodus anytime soon. There'll always be work for the rangers to do in New Wirral.
I and the other captains have already committed to staying in New Wirral to protect anyone who chooses to remain. But snalligator, you've worked harder for this than anyone I've ever known. I won't hold it against you if you choose to resign your position as captain and leave. Whatever you decide, you have my full support.

It turns out finding the way home demanded someone just happen to show up when the Harbourtown station opened, so that Morgante could hitch a ride. And then she got the strength to guide the way out from defeating other Archangels, so it's probably best that she tagged along with the rookie who's Natural Isekai Talent is being good at fighting rather than, say, the weather reporter or the misanthropic hacker.
Since it's possible to open Night's Bridge without hearing all of Morgante's song, it's kind of funny that even when New London was being built nobody put a stone down in exactly the right place to open Night's Bridge up. Could've solved all this thirty-plus years ago, judging from the timeline back at the museum.

The canon ending being "all the partners split up and everyone goes home" is why I don't pursue romance with any of them over the course of the game. Having a heartrending breakup as the backdrop for the otherwise happy ending just doesn't jive with me.


As it is, very few people in town seem to have noticed that anything is different.

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Part 18: With A Little Forward Planning And Perspective, You'd Have Avoided This

About a year ago when the game was new-ish I did a quick writeup over in the Whatcha Playin' thread, mostly covering stuff I've talked about in more detail in this LP, but concluding that the postgame is "tedious garbage". And, well...


This is it. This will be the primary questgiver for the remainder of the Let's Play.


I touched on it before, but the board has its own experience level. Earning Fused Material levels the board -- picking one up is enough, it still counts even if I spend it later. When I first opened the board back in Part 11 it needed only 15 Fused Material to level from 1 to 2. Now it needs 50, and I have over 100. So as soon as I clear these three quests, it'll level again.


So let's go see about this Frankie character.

Captain Cybil: Hey-hey, snalligator! I want you to meet our latest and greatest recruit, Frankie!


I can't judge about the cat ears since I had the player character running around in them for most of the game. The character customization never offered me a panda backpack, though.

Frankie: Omigosh, are you another veteran monster fighter of this mysterious island also?
Prompt: "Veteran?" / "I haven't been here THAT long!"
Frankie: A magical world full of monsters, and the dashing heroes who transform to battle them...


Frankie: THIS IS EVERYTHING I'VE EVER DREAMED OF!

Posting this portrait because I'm pretty sure Frankie uses the starry-eyed portrait at least as much as the default one. Hell, her official promo art includes the star eyes. She's just really excitable, okay?

Kayleigh: You're pretty excited by all this, aren't you?
Captain Cybil: As you can see, Frankie here has taken the news of coming to New Wirral pretty well.
Frankie: I assure you, I want to make the most of this! Joining the Rangers is no doubt the path this adventure has in store for me! Hehe~
Captain Cybil: I've given Frankie a spare cassette player. All you'll need to do now is give her a monster tape, and show her the ropes! ...And that's the end of my broadcast! See you around snalligator!
Frankie: My very own monster form... The first step on my own fantastical journey...


It seems only fair that I give her a tape that's statistically better than average, since I ended up with Ramtasm. Here, I'll save you some remastering headaches later on: have a Miss Mimic. Judging by that pin on your backpack strap you can empathize with a monster that has to pretend to be something it's not before revealing its true feminine form.

Franke: I'm gonna be a booby-trapped item locker, huh?
...
THIS FORM IS PERFECT! I WILL TREASURE THIS CASSETTE TAPE WITH MY LIFE!

Glad you like it. (Yes, she responds with that line even if you give her a Squirey or something.)

Frankie: Please, captain, you must "show me the ropes!"! I demand to see the ropes! Let's fight some monsters, OK?


Uh, well, the important thing to remember is that Random Starter can finish battles for you before they begin. It also helps to fight things that you have an advantage over to the tune of eighty experience levels, that makes things nice and quick. (Frankie is somehow already level 42. She really does take to this like a duck to water, huh?)

Frankie: Wow, turning into a weird monster is actually much more tiring than I thought it would be. I think I need to go and rest. And eat a lot of food. Potentially in that order. Seeya, Captain! Thanks for training me! A plucky young hero always needs a wisened mentor, and I'm glad it's you!

So that's it for Recruit Training Frankie.

[nosimpleway]

Delivery jobs are not so interesting. Have X number of Y item in your inventory, then go fork 'em over to whatever weirdo is standing out in a monster-infested field wishing he smelled worse.


And "Battle a bunch of Rogue Fusion" jobs even less interesting than that. I've already done this over a hundred times and there's nothing new that happens for the next four of 'em.


(Though while I am at Icelington fighting Jumbo Smogmagog I also manage to snag a Beast-type Cryoshear.)


The job is to fight Rogue Fusions, so Kuneko, Miss Mimic, Averevoir, Picksie, or Umbrahella battles don't count.


I would believe that, because I also just saw a winged catgirl on the lake. The people of Harbourtown are giving Rumours again, but very nearly all of them are "Hey there's an overworld encounter with Kuneko, Miss Mimic, Averevoir, Picksie, Umbrahella, or a Rogue Fusion out in this spot". I already have the Fusion Radar so that's not very helpful. If I still had any gaps in my Bestiary, they would try to point out where the monsters I'm missing randomly spawn, but I don't, so they don't.


I gotta say, of all the places the entrance to Night's Bridge station could be, New London is one of the more convenient ones. There's not another station in this part of the map, so it's a nice fast-travel shortcut to have. Previous playthroughs have put Night's Bridge in Cherry Hills (right by Cherry Cross station) or on top of Falldown Mall (literally on top of the Falldown Mall station).


Anyway, at this point in the game Rogue Fusion fights aren't any more fun to do than they are interesting to talk about. I set up Triphinx with the build I had in mind all along: just blast everything with Wonderful 7 as soon as a fight starts, and if anything survives, it'll have so many status ailments it won't be able to fight back. The idea was to have Echolocation go off at the start, then the game figures out which Random Starters will fire -- but as far as I can tell the game weighs which move gets picked by Random Starter based on its AP cost, and the cheaper the better. After a couple fights where Triphinx uses Echolocation on itself four times and Wonderful 7 once, I just take Echolocation off and replace it with another Random Starter. Wonderful 7 is only single-target, but with four or five of them going off in a row that doesn't matter much.


So that's that. Board level up. Usually when this happens the board will report that some random character -- a Captain, Leader Ianthe herself, Frankie, whoever -- has found an extra Fused Material or two. Getting the other forty-nine to ninety-nine is still my job, of course.


And Frankie's side story isn't the only postgame arc around. Hey Ianthe, hint us in on another one.

Leader Ianthe: Thanks for the efforts on the tasks I sent you on, snalligator! The last batch you gave me proved extremely useful. Captain Lodestein tells me his ground-penetrating Fusion Radar is already picking up a signal deep under Dino Quarry, in the Deadlands. I've assigned Captain Wallace to excavate it when he's not busy with training and Rogue Fusion duty.

Translation: You'll be exploring the dig site in a couple more sidequests, hang tight.

Leader Ianthe: Speaking of Fusions, there's been a, uh, new development... Some kind of new, unstable fusion has been popping up all over. "Anathema" is what we've been calling it. The rate these things have been replicating is... troubling to say the least. I'll send a few your way via the noticeboard. Would you mind taking a look?

Reluctantly, yeah, I'll do it.


Ranger Noticeboard, level 3. Fused Material to next level: 100. Found: 0/100. The extra fifty I had on top of what I needed to pass from level 2 to level 3 don't count, whee! So I have to do these quests, and fight Rogue Fusions, and whatever else... 100 times.

This is why I let Random Starter do all the work.

The quests this time are: find and fight one of those Anathema that Ianthe was talking about, defeat 7 Hopskins, and do another supply delivery. I'll do those last two off-camera.

[nosimpleway]

Let's get this part over with, then.


The opening Wonderful 7 volley manages to KO the monster that was standing next to Anathemantler, proc Poison and Confuse on Anathemantler itself, and Decibelle's Random Starter lands Unitarget. Good start.


But then... I'm seeing double! Four Anathemantlers!

This is the first hint that Anathema is built from the ground up to be really, really fucking annoying to fight. Their exclusive move is Fission Power, which does as you behold here: it makes a copy of the user, splitting its HP between the two. So now I'm fighting two Rogue Fusions instead of one.


The extra copy of a Rogue Fusion doesn't split into its component parts when it loses all its HP, but it does give Anathema an extra chance to use Self-Destruct. The rest of Anathema's moveset includes Bite to restore its HP, Desperation to take advantage of any turns it spends at low HP before being KOed, Pustule Bomb for a strong attack that procs poison status, and Random Starter so it can do any of those (or whatever moves possessed by the monster it fused with) at the start of the fight. Hey! That's my thing!

Unfused, Anathema is just a brobdingnagian ol pile of monster bits Frankensteined together. Plasmantler is just Plasmantler.


Anathema is one of the postgame-only monsters I haven't found yet, so I try to record it. This does not work.
(Clarification: Apparently, Anathema is the only postgame-exclusive monster in the game. The other monster I'm missing can be found before defeating Aleph and leveling up the Job Board, but it's a rare assist-only appearance on Mt. Wirral. I'll just wait until I open up the postgame quest that makes them significantly more common before I get one.)


One last pointless gesture and the job is done.


Singing? From Harbourtown Station? Oh. Oh. Hmm. Uh. Well. Sorry you can't sleep but that sounds like something I'm not gonna take care of right this instant.


Found: 3/100. Oh, Clee-0 found an extra. 4/100.

This will take a while.

[nosimpleway]

Next set of jobs: Fight four Smogmagogs, fight four Rogue Fusions, and oh hey that jerk who's been stealing stuff is back.


Thief: You damn rangers are always sticking your noses in places they don't belong! C'mon, fight me one-on-one!

Again, I really don't see why I'm obligated to humor y--


Whatever. Who cares.

Thief: Heh, you'll never catch me. And I'll never give up... Not until the people are free from the tyranny of the Harbourtown Rangers!


fight fight fight


heh heh, Thwackafo

The next set of board quests is to go fight an Unstable Fusion, track down that thief again again, and do a Fusion of Brushoom and Traffikrab to show Professor Hoylake.


That last one is complicated somewhat by my having already remastered all my Brushrooms and Traffikrabs into other stuff, but I know where to find them to record fresh copies.


This dumbass fled from our last encounter by moving into the next room in the cave. Somehow this made him impossible to follow until I returned to Harbourtown first.

Thief: Oh look. The Ranger's have sent the loyal goon to track me down again!
Prompt: "Hey! The name's snalligator!" / *Rangers
Thief: ... Then you're... You're the heartless god-killer that caused this mess! You're the one that left Brother Cooper to die!
Prompt: "God-killer?" / "I did neither of those things!" / look I can show you exactly how it happened, I have screenshots
Kayleigh: You're with the Mournchildren?
Thief: Enough talking! Come here and fight me, you coward!


This goes as well for what's-his-name as it always does.

Thief: When our leader was cruelly slain, you rangers immediately started trying to "offer us help". Yeah, right. Never mind that one of their own is what sent our community into disarray!
Kayleigh: You've got this all wrong. Dorian was responsible for everything your community went through!
Thief: The blank tapes and stickers I've been stealing... They're gonna be for our resistance!

And off he goes again.

[nosimpleway]

Next board update: Fight an Unstable Fusion, make a special delivery of supplies to Mourningtown, and go find Hoylake's assistant Dr. Kirby on the lake. Bring a Dandylion tape. (I don't have a Dandylion tape. I am starting to suspect the quests for Hoylake are biased towards monsters I don't have a copy of at that moment.)


The delivery is easy enough, there's a fast travel point right there. This is what what's-his-name is so upset about?


Kirby: Hello, snalligator, pleasure to meet you. Dr Kirby PhD, Zoologist, University of Cambridge. Professor Hoylake has told me all about you - about how he helped you out when you first arrived, and about how he saved your life... Did you know, on his home world, after he won the Nobel Prize for discovering the last undiscovered species, they crowned him King-Scientist of the world? That's what he told me! What an inspiration!

I should have brought Meredith. She'd think this was hilarious.

Kirby: Anyway, let's get to business, shall we? Hoylake says that to be a better scientist, I need to get to know what it's like to be a brobdingnagian flowery lion. I was hoping you could guide me through it. Do you have your Dandylion tape ready?


We'll be seeing more of Kirby. Every "Hoylake's Assistant" quest has a themed fight where both Kirby and his buddy transform into one particular monster.


And not surprisingly, the second round sees a bootleg so it's not all fighting against the same elemental type.


Oh, right. I guess I should have brought someone with a bunch of Cold Fusion.

A double Blossomaw has some nigh-impenetrable defenses, but I can probably just sit back and let the damage-over-time from Poison, Burn, and Leech handle things. Turns out when you let me hit two targets with a bunch of Wonderful 7 and then combine them into one target with all the status effects the two of them had, that's a lot of stuff to deal with.


Weird that I haven't seen all the elemental interactions yet. A plant-type hit on a poison-type target gives the poison-type Attack Up and Ranged Attack Up.


I'm pretty sure Hoylake sent you out here just to get beat up, and sent me to do it. And I'm not sure why I had to bring a Dandylion tape of my own, since I didn't use it.

Kirby: Hoylake must be very resilient to have gone through all this and no longer have any need of transformation. Thank you, snalligator. I definitely learned a lot about Dandylion.


Tracked down to a location where? Tracked down to a location where?!


(The exact same room in the exact same spot he was before.)


I have nothing to report on a fight with a Terracooka/Folklord fusion.


Thief: That thing ambushed me...

How? They can't move until you've already engaged them.

Thief: Why... did you do that, snalligator? You could have just left me to rot like Brother Cooper and be rid of your thief problem for good.
Prompt: "You're mistaken!" / "I didn't leave Brother Cooper to die!" / It had a Fused Material I needed, so I took it. You weren't really a factor.


You'd think Kayleigh would have more to say about this whole situation. But as usual what I say doesn't matter, the situation is resolved when Jacqueline wings in from nowhere in particular.

Jacqueline: Vin!? You're behind all this? When Ianthe told me someone was stealing supplies the rangers had set aside for the commune, I didn't think it would be you!
Vin: Set... aside... for the commune? Our commune?
Jacqueline: Yes, you idiot!
Vin: But the rangers... They took control, right? Coerced you, and stuff?
Jacqueline: Not at all. Dorian's death was an awakening for me. When he was with us - when he was in charge - it was like living under a spell. I couldn't recognize what was happening around me for what it was. It is only looking back that I can recognize things for how they truly were.
Kayleigh: Jacqueline...
Jacqueline: I sought out help for the commune, and Ianthe was kind enough to provide it. You know, we'd be starving by now if not for her support. Dorian had us dig up our vegetable patch to get to that Archangel!
Vin: ...
Jacqueline: Come on, let's get you home so you can rest up. snalligator, I'm so, so sorry. I've known Vin since he arrived in New Wirral. His heart is in the right place, he's just...

Not capable of asking a question and having a two-minute conversation before leaping to the dumbest conclusion possible?

Jacqueline: horribly misinformed. I'll call a meeting with the whole commune and set everything straight. It won't happen again. Please let Ianthe know how grateful I am to have her support.

Well, at least that's the last we'll see of Dumbass McStealyface.

[nosimpleway]

Part 19: Dal Segno al Coda

I've used Wonderful 7 a lot. Like a lot a lot. While waiting for Random Starter to plink down one Rogue Fusion after another I started paying more attention to which wonders appeared before the beam fired, and which status effects were caused.
The Pyramid beam causes Sleep. The Stonehenge beam causes Leeched. The Colosssus beam causes Confusion. There's some kind of stone ziggurat that might generously be called the Hanging Gardens that causes Poison.
There's also an image of the Colosseum at Rome, which by accident or design is used for both the beam that causes AP Drain and the one that causes Berserk. And finally there's a building I don't recognize, something with a curtain wall around a central tower, that causes Burned.
So Wonderful 7 causes seven status ailments, but has pictures of only six historical monuments, three of which were ever called Wonders of the Ancient World: The Great Pyramid of Giza, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (if that is in fact what the ziggurat is supposed to be). Stonehenge and The Colosseum were not traditionally included in the set, and I can't even figure out what the sixth monument is supposed to be. It doesn't look like any depictions I can find of the Ampharos at Alexandria, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, or the Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus.

None of this has anything to do with the game. It's just something I noticed.


Anyway. Next job board. There's nothing to see about the delivery ("Hey, you got that thing?" "Yeah" "OK thanks") and the Unstable Fusion is an Anathema/Squirey, so you already know the most interesting thing about that.


Let's go see what Frankie is up to.

Frankie: Oh, hey there captain! Are you here to assist me in my own personal hero's journey?
Prompt: "Hero's Journey...?" / "What are you up to?"
Frankie: THERE MUST COME A MOMENT WHERE EVERY PLUCKY YOUNG ADVENTURER CARVES THEIR OWN PATH~
That's what I'm doing. I'm the plucky young adventurer, if you didn't get where I was going with this.
Prompt: "I see." / "I'm not following."
Frankie: Anyway, I found one of those "Rogue Fusions" just up ahead - I'm going to go and show it who's boss!
Prompt: "Do you need a hand?" / "Are you sure that's a good idea?"
Frankie: Don't worry! I have a natural affinity for this - I've read over 200 fanfics about people transforming into monsters. (Please don't ask me to elaborate on this.)


Uh... let's just fight this thing, it'd be less painful.


Frankie: My career is coming along quite well, I think!
Prompt: "Career?" / "Huh?"
Frankie: W-well, my career as a dashing and mysterious heroine who saves the humble people of this fantasy land, of course! I have no doubt - soon a greater evil shall arise... AND I SHALL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR SAVING THIS ISLAND!
Prompt: "You're a bit late." / "I've done that already!"
Frankie: Huh? Y-you have? That's OK! I'm sure there'll be SOME evil left somewhere for me to overcome! You might have missed a spot!


As before, only one of these deserves any elaboration.


I'm a little surprised you're not still hanging out in the Lake Thirstaton caves.

Vin: When you saved me from that Rogue Fusion, it really forced me to question everything. I regret messing up like I did... but in the end I did it because I wanted to support my community. So I joined the rangers to do just that! And to make up for my mistakes, of course.
Kayleigh: Brilliant! I'm glad you're turning things around for yourself, Vin!
Vin: And now I must challenge you for your stamp! Come on, fight me one-on-one, snalligator!

Well listen, first of all, the established Ranger gets to decide what the trial for the stamp is, and I'm thinking we'd be better off challenging your natural agility for getting the hell away after you've lost a fight than the fight itself. So I definitely don't think I need to humor you for thi--


Sigh.

Okay. Well, second of all, every Ranger captain has their own gimmick they follow.


Mine is that I win fights before they even start.


Though I suspect you're used to that by now. Get wrecked.


Vin: Damn... you don't hold back even with your friends, do you?
Prompt: "That's right!" / "I believe in tough love." / Oh! That's easy to explain. We're not friends.
Vin: It's a good thing there are still 12 other captains I can get my stamps from. Next time you see me, I'm gonna be a full-time ranger, snalligator!

"Heads I win, tails you lose." Get out of my face.

[nosimpleway]

The next board level is a bounty on Sirenade, a couple Rogue Fusions, and an Unstable Fusion. After that is a Hoylake's Assistant: Weevilite, a Busheye bounty, and an Unstable Fusion. After that is an Unstable Fusion, a supply delivery, and a Hoylake's Assistant: Sparktan. And after that I think I completely forgot I was taking screenshots so that I don't have any notes on what other two tasks it was the next time I went to go talk to Frankie.


So anyway, here's Frankie.

Frankie: Hey, snalligator! I have a question for you!
Prompt: "Ask away!" / "What's your question?"
Frankie: What does it mean... to take charge of your life?
Prompt: "That's a broad question." / "What...?"
Frankie: W-well, I should be using my time on New Wirral to fulfil my life, or something! Save the world! Find my true calling! Fall in love! Y'know, all the classic adventure stuff! I can't waste a second!
Prompt: "Maybe your expectations are too high..." / "Don't put yourself under too much pressure!"
Frankie: Hmm. You're probably right. OK, second question! Can you help me fight a Rogue Fusion I found nearby? I'm sure that'll be a worthwhile experience!


Frankie is leveling up fast, but asks for help with Rogue Fusions she outlevels on her own.


And the next board, she's ready to talk some more.

Frankie: Hey, captain! I am thinking of attempting to become a real ranger. No more rookie status for me! Though I'll need to get stronger first. ...So of course, I've tracked down a Rogue Fusion to battle! There's no time to wait - let's go pummel it!

I didn't even take screenshots of what the Rogue Fusion is.



Looking for Thwackalopes I pick up another bootleg for my collection, and looking for Rogue Fusions another yet.




Frankie: Nyeh heh heh~! I bet you never expected that I would challenge you to a duel, right?

Why does no one remember that I get to decide what the ranger trial is? That was well-established earlier, the Captain decides what the quota is. I know she's fine in a fight, I've fought alongside her several times now. I want her to work on her confidence in herself. Frankie... tell me about the fanfic you've read!

Frankie: THE STUDENT MUST TAKE ON THE MASTER!

sigh.

Frankie: The only way I can become a true ranger is to defeat you and claim your stamp! I even tamed this Puppercut to help me! What do you say - do you accept my challenge?
Prompt: "Give it your all, rookie!" / "I won't go easy on you!"


I don't know what, if anything, the Puppercut is supposed to add. Frankie herself has supplemented the Miss Mimic I gave her with a Blossomaw and a Spooki-Onna. nbd

Frankie: Nyeh heh heh~! I knew you'd be tough! That's why I made sure to battle the other 12 captains first.
Prompt: "Huh?" / "You did what?"
Frankie: You heard correctly - I already qualify for rangerhood! I just wanted to see how tough you were. You didn't disappoint! See you around, Captain~!

[nosimpleway]

...I guess I should have seen this one coming.


Mmhmm.

Frankie: Nyeh heh heh~! Bet you didn't expect to find your two protégés here, did you, Captain?
Vin: Hey snalligator. I've finally passed my training and become a full-time ranger!
Kayleigh: I never would have figured these two would end up friends!
Frankie: Uh, I have some news too. My pet Puppercut ran away~! Captain Cybil says wild monsters don't make great pets, but... I'm certain it was the fanfic I wrote about him. But not to worry! My new best buddy Vin doesn't mind that stuff!

Vin has a line where he asks what the hell Frankie is talking about but the text box closes automatically so I couldn't get the exact line before

Frankie: AHHHH~! I demand a rematch, Captain! Me and Vin against you and Kayleigh! How about it?


Miss Mimic and Jormungold, then Blossomaw and Khufo. Knock those out, and...


What a twist! Frankie's Spooki-Onna and Vin's Mardiusa combine!


But combining means they combine all their status effects, including the AP Down and Berserk I threw onto Khufo and the many, many layers of Poison I put on Blossomaw. Then I switch back to Triphinx and nail the fusion with even more Wonderful 7.


Frankie: Ahh... Not again!
Vin: Chin up, Frankie. We can't win them all. snalligator, it wasn't until I fused with Frankie that I realised relying on others isn't a weakness. When we combine our efforts, we're more than simply the sum of our parts. That's what all this is about, isn't it?
Frankie: AND SO THE PLUCKY HEROINE AIDS THE ANTI-HERO'S REDEMPTION ARC THROUGH THE POWER OF LOVE~! Nyeh heh heh~! Seeya, snalligator!


Another bootleg.


Finally, 100 Fused Material for the noticeboard. Once I get Hoylake this five-star Pondwalker and clear the board...




Leader Ianthe: Thanks for your efforts on the tasks I sent you, snalligator! Do you remember the signal under Dino Quarry I told you Captain Lodestein's Fusion Radar had picked up?

It seems so long ago. I glossed over a lot of errands here.

Leader Ianthe: Well, I had Captain Wallace excavate it, and it looks like another of those train stations that have been popping up everywhere. Judging by the strength of the signal in this station, it could be the source of all the Anathema and Rogue Fusions! snalligator, as our ranger most experienced with these stations... and their strange inhabitants... could you take a look?

[beatbandito]

Why does no one remember that I get to decide what the ranger trial is? That was well-established earlier, the Captain decides what the quota is.

[nosimpleway]

Part 20: It Seems Like Years Since It's Been Here


cheers m8


Also Captain Penny Dreadful is there.

Captain Penny Dreadful: This is my turf, snalligator! If there's gonna be a scrap in my neck of the woods, I don't want to be left in the dark.


Captain Penny Dreadful: Hold onto your knickers, ladies and gents - there's a nasty brobdingnagian blighter here! Shall we show it what we're made of, then?


Kayleigh and I charge in to do what we do best.


Also Captain Penny Dreadful is there.


Captain Penny Dreadful: That was a right ruckus! You take a look around - I need to catch my breath.

Kayleigh and I did all the work. You tried to set up with Gambit which is Clee-0's gimmick anyway and didn't get a chance to move twice.


There it is. Khepri has about a five percent chance to show up as an assist in the caves of Mt. Wirral, but a fifty percent chance to show up as an assist in the power station here.


#116 Kepri, the "floating scarab creature"
"Each Khepri wields a miniature sun between its horns, from which it draws energy that sustains it. It is able to agitate this sun when attacked, projecting solar flames towards anyone who may threaten it.
Khepri is both the top and the bottom of the scale. Nothing has a higher base stat than Khepri's 300 Ranged Attack, and nothing has a lower base stat than its 1 Melee Attack. It's slow and can't take a melee hit, so make sure fights are over before it can take too much damage.
By the point Khepri becomes available, it's pretty well assumed that the player knows how to swap stickers between tapes. It gets Crumble at one star and Rapid Fire at five, with its other stickers providing support moves like usual. Raise Arms is almost redundant, but Fire Wall might plausibly keep it alive.
The inspiration: Khepri is a god of the morning sun and the cycle of death and rebirth from ancient Egyptian myth, with a scarab theme.


Lending credence to the idea that this is where the Anathema are coming from, they show up un-fused to anything else in random fights.


And since it is the last monster I need to record, I'm willing to throw my Master Ball at it.


#120 Anathema, the "gross Frankenstein monster"
"Anathemas are chimeras, hideous beasts created from the parts of various monsters that were surgically attached together. They must have been created on purpose, but by who? And for what purpose?"
I talked about how Anathema is created from the ground up to be annoying to fight, and that means moves that don't really benefit the player very much. There might be something to a combination of Fission Power with a backup monster that knows Echolocation and Nurse, so that you get a third monster in the fight and can heal both the new Anathema and the original up to full... but then you have two mid-tier monsters instead of one? It's more reliable than Call for Help, I guess.
The inspiration: Anathema is something created in the game world itself, from existing monsters. That's Folklord's arm and legs, Masquerattle's tail, and Manispear's torso and arm.


There's only one room to the Power Station. The brobdingnagian machine where the Giga Anathema was standing is in the middle, with a little catwalk around the east, west, and south sides. On that catwalk are six desks, each with a journal page, a nearby switch, and a lamp that turns on when the switch is flipped. Head around, flip the switches, read the journals:

"10/10/1957 0400", yes these entries use real-world dating and not "years since arrival in New Wirral" like the Heritage Center back in town
"Stayed up all night with Dr. Aegle and Dr. Aetheria, designing new experiments to run the fusion reactor. We really got into the flow of it and lost track of time - for a while it felt like we were one singular entity focused on the reactor!"

Would you say your hearts were beating as one? Did you suddenly hear lyrics to the background music?

"10/10/1957 0515", so a little over an hour later than the first entry
"Something odd is going on in the reactor - the temperature in the core keeps rising! We've turned on the cooling fans to increase airflow, but it hasn't helped! If this keeps up, we're toast, literally!"

Better stop trying to address the problem and write down how I feel about it real quick! And I am not any kind of engineer but I have a feeling a couple air fans are not adequate hardware to cool a fusion reactor in the first place.

"10/10/1957 0700"
"A being calling itself 'Helia' emerged from the reactor! The thermocouples immediately registered a drop in core temperature, so... I think it's safe again now? 'Helia' looks sort of like a diagram of a helium atom, with the two rings representing electron orbits..."

"10/10/1957 0730"
"'Helia' tells us that we somehow created her, or summoned her? She's now explaining how to make our reactor workable. And afterwards she wants to talk to us about other kinds of fusion... What other kinds?!"

"11/10/1957 0305"
"We followed Helia's suggestions to combine Folklord, Masquerattle, Manispear, and REDACTED, which the Ministry of Supply sourced for us from a local zoo. Helia seems dissatisfied with the result - was this not what she wanted? Are we supposed to have used live beasts?"

"11/10/1957 0800"
"What have we done!? The unstable fusion is out of control! It keeps duplicating!! The ministry has sealed the building to keep it in, and I'm stuck inside! Mer-Line help me!"

Cause of death: writing journals.


Lighting all the lamps around the perimeter of the room raises a platform in the center. Penny Dreadful is no help, but there's a final lever right behind her...


A few arcs of electricity, an explosion, the screen goes white, and...

[nosimpleway]

Show of hands if you saw this one coming. Props to this one for looking somewhat like a Book-of-Isaiah angel, with the eye motif on the outside of the wheels.

THOSE UNSTABLE FUSIONS ARE QUITE TROUBLESOME TO REMOVE ONCE THEY START REPLICATING.
WHAT BRINGS YOU HERE, SNALLIGATOR?

Prompt: "You know me?"

I KNOW YOU QUITE WELL. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU FUSED NOW?

Fewer than the gameplay progression has assumed, I think. If it weren't for mandatory fusion in new-partner Archangel fights or Hoylake's research requests I can't think of any other time.

WHEREVER THERE IS FUSION, I AM FOUND.
I AM HELIA, PROCESS OF FUSION.

Kayleigh: Then you're creating the Rogue Fusions?

"ROGUE FUSIONS"?
OH, YES. THE STABLE ONES. THOSE WONDERFUL BEASTS ARE MY DOING.
NOW I SEE WHY YOU'RE HERE. I SENSE THE POTENTIAL FOR FUSION RISING WITHIN YOU BOTH, WHICH MUST MEAN...
YOU'RE HERE TO FIGHT, ARE YOU NOT?

What? No, I--





Helia is one of the very few Archangels with an elemental type. As a fire-type, it has type interactions like fire-types typically do. And I have Kayleigh's Decibelle, and also Penny Dreadful is there with a Queenyx. Sadly, Helia is immune to stat-downs by virtue of being an Archangel, so being Extinguished or Smothered has no added effect.


But status effects that aren't stat downs are still fair game, Wonderful 7 is an astral-type move, and astral on fire means AP Drain. I don't have to hustle to avoid the Angelic Attack like I would with the untyped Archangel fights.

Helia has expected fire-type moves like Incinerate and Inflame, Galactic Beatdown and Shooting Star, and in an appropriate nod, Radiation Breath. She has a more or less unique passive in Radioactive, causing Burn status to anything that makes physical contact with her (including the targets of Incinerate, being a melee attack). She's got Status Resistance, so hitting her with Burned or Leeched from Wonderful 7 deals less damage, and Neutralize to remove them entirely (though in this instance couldn't use it because she was Berserked when she hit half HP, thanks again Wonderful 7).


I'm sure her Angelic Attack is something really strong that could take out a monster and the human underneath in a critical hit, but thanks to hitting her with AP Drain as soon as the fight started, Ramtasm and Decibelle had the chance to finish her off with Last Rites and Headshot before Helia could build up 10 AP.


Also, Captain Penny Dreadful was there.


I agree, that was pointless. We didn't even fuse to fight you... but it was your idea in the first place.

IT WOULD DO YOU NO GOOD TO END FUSION. DO YOU NOT SEE?
THE PLANTS YOU RELY ON TO SURVIVE DERIVE THEIR ENERGY FROM THE NUCLEAR FUSION AT THE HEART OF YOUR STAR.
I FORM LIFE. WHEN DEAD ATOMS COME TOGETHER TO FORM LIVING CELLS, THAT IS ANOTHER KIND OF FUSION.
WHEN INDIVIDUAL CELLS COME TOGETHER TO FORM INTELLIGENT MULTICELLULAR LIFEFORMS, THAT IS ALSO ME.
WITHOUT ME - WITHOUT FUSION - THERE WOULD BE NO LIFE.

Kayleigh: Your "wonderful beasts" put Harbourtown in danger!

AS I SAID, I AM THE PROCESS OF FUSION.
I AM NOT THE CAUSE OF IT.
SNALLIGATOR, WHEN YOU FUSE WITH KAYLEIGH, IT IS NOT BECAUSE I TELL YOU TO.
I AM SIMPLY THE MEANS.

Oh! So you're the one who's been making it weird this whole time! Suddenly fighting you has a reason.

YOU DON'T BLAME DEATH WHEN THERE'S BEEN A MURDER.

Prompt: "Then who do we blame?" / "Help us out here..."

ULTIMATELY, THE CAUSE OF THE "ROGUE FUSIONS" IS THE ENTITY THAT CEASELESSLY CONJURES THE DEBRIS OF OTHER WORLDS TO THIS LAND.
IT IS THE ONE THAT BROUGHT ME, AND YOU - AND INDEED EVERY OTHER HUMAN - HERE.

Ah, so the greater-scope villain for this story is...

THE MER-LINE. THE ONE THAT LIES BENEATH.

Kayleigh: The Mer-Line? I don't like this, snalligator...
Prompt: "Let's go meet the Mer-Line." / "A straight answer, finally."

emphasis mine

ONE MORE THING BEFORE YOU LEAVE, SNALLIGATOR.
YOU MANIFESTED THE SPIRIT OF REBELLION, MORGANTE, WHEN YOU FOUGHT ALEPH, DID YOU NOT?

Prompt: "Yeah, why?" / "We did, yes."

THE SWORD THAT YOU WIELD HAS TWO EDGES.
OF FUSION, OR ANY WORK PERFORMED BY A GROUP TOWARDS A SINGLE PURPOSE, YOU MIGHT SAY "THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS".
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE WHOLE AND THE SUM OF ITS PARTS IS THE EGREGORE, OR "ARCHANGEL".
EGREGORES ARE SMALL AND WEAK AT FIRST, BUT WITH ENOUGH DIRECTED WILL THEY CAN MANIFEST INDEPENDENTLY, EXERT POWER, AND TAKE CONTROL.
DURING OUR BATTLE, I SENSED THE SEED OF CONQUEST WITHIN YOUR HEART.
I ASK THAT YOU BE MINDFUL OF THE WILL YOU MANIFEST.
ALEPH CAN YET RETURN.

That's the kind of revelation that would come at the end of Act 1 in your typical console RPG, while the player character struggles with whatever the hell Helia is talking about for the rest of the game, managing only to harness the power of conquest or whatever to take out the main villain. But since this is postgame already, I'm pretty sure nothing ever comes of it.


Helia vanishes. Only Captain Penny Dreadful is there.

Captain Penny Dreadful: That was certainly somethin'! I better report all this back to Ianthe. Good luck with the Mer-Line, snalligator. I'll sit that one out.
Hmm... I wonder if "Helia" had anything to do with the fire that burned down New London all those years ago...?

...and I'm pretty sure nothing ever comes of that, either.

[nosimpleway]

While I don't think it matters, since the Mer-Line is under every part of the island of New Wirral, the quest marker points to the Harbourtown Station as the spot for the showdown.


Magikrab: snalligator, the Mer-Line is waiting for you. Please come with me to Platform A.

Yeah I got the rumour about creepy singing from inside the station, so I'm pretty sure Platform B is where Morgante is hanging out again. Let's head to A instead.


Platform A looks a lot like Platform B, except there are a bunch of subway sigils plastered all over the far wall. The characters have been through here dozens of times, but the player hasn't seen it yet, maybe they've always been there.

Magikrab: The Mer-Line will now speak through me.


One of the signs comes off the back wall and floats forward, while the Magikrab's traffic-light eye, uh, lights up. Like a traffic light.

The Mer-Line: SNALLIGATOR, THE MER-LINE WISHES TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR PART IN DEFEATING THEIR WAYWARD STUDENT, ALEPH.

Not sure how the egregore of Conquest got to be the student of the egregore of subways, but there you have it. The guy who's a reference to Arthur had a mentor figure in this guy, Mer-whatever.

The Mer-Line: HUMANKIND IS ABOUT TO FACE A CHALLENGE OF UNPRECEDENTED PROPORTIONS. THE OUTCOME IS NOT YET CERTAIN.
THE MER-LINE WAS CURIOUS TO SEE IF YOUR SPECIES' WARLIKE NATURE COULD BE OVERCOME.
BY DEFEATING ALEPH, THE MANIFESTATION OF CONQUEST, YOU HAVE PERFORMED YOUR ROLE IN THE RITUAL, AND ARE NOW FREE TO LEAVE.
Prompt: "We had help from Morgante." / "Morgante..." / I hope it doesn't spoil the metaphor of overcoming conquest if we had to fight him.
The Mer-Line: AH YES, MORGANTE. ALEPH'S OLD LOVER.
Kayleigh: Aleph's... lover...?
The Mer-Line: REBELLION AND CONQUEST WEREN'T ALWAYS ENEMIES. WHAT IS THE SPIRIT OF REBELLION WITHOUT A FORCE TO REBEL AGAINST? WHAT IS THE KING OF CONQUEST WITHOUT SOMEONE TO CONQUER?
THE RED KING AND WHITE QUEEN ARE TRAPPED IN A CONSTANT CYCLE OF DEATH AND REBIRTH, OF OPPOSITION AND UNITY. THEY ARE THE ENGINE THAT TURNS THE WHEEL OF HUMAN HISTORY.
THEY EVEN HAD A SON ONCE. DID YOU KNOW THAT?
MORGANTE'S MANIFESTATION DURING YOUR BATTLE WITH ALEPH DOESN'T MINIMIZE THE PART YOU PLAYED IN DEFEATING HIM.
AFTER ALL, YOU BROUGHT THE COFFEE. QUITE THE OPPOSITE, IN FACT. IT WAS YOUR WILL THAT INVOKED HER, AND THEREBY CUT SHORT ALEPH'S RETURN TO THE WIDER COSMOS.
SPEAK YOUR MIND, SNALLIGATOR. THE MER-LINE KNOWS YOU HAVE A REQUEST.
Prompt: "You need to stop the Rogue Fusions!"
The Mer-Line: THE MER-LINE COULD STOP THE "ROGUE FUSIONS".
HOWEVER, IT WOULD NOT BE RIGHT TO DEPRIVE OTHERS OF THE SAME OPPORTUNITIES YOU HAD, SNALLIGATOR.
YOUR KIND MUST FACE LIFE AND DEATH SITUATIONS IN ORDER TO GROW IN MORE THAN JUST NUMBER.
IT IS LONG PAST THE TIME FOR YOU TO RETURN TO YOUR OWN WORLDS, SNALLIGATOR AND KAYLEIGH. IT IS THERE THAT YOU, AND THE SPIRIT OF REBELLION, ARE NEEDED.

So we came in and asked "So hey, those monsters are hurting a lot of people off-camera, we went and talked to the egregore of fusion about it but really this is more of a fission problem, can you knock it off?" and the Mer-Line just shrugged and said "Nah". Our answer received, the Magikrab stops channeling and regains its senses.


Magikrab: Uh, what were we doing? The last few minutes seem to have slipped my mind.
Prompt: The Mer-Line was talking through you.
Magikrab: Count yourself very fortunate, snalligator! They don't descend to this plane often!

I'm just surprised I didn't have to fistfight it.


Fade out, fade in as I fill Ianthe in on what happened.

Leader Ianthe: Huh, so the Mer-Line expects us to handle the Rogue Fusion situation ourselves? At least we have the Night's Bridge station to retreat to if things get bad - thanks for your hard work.
snalligator, I said before that if you left New Wirral I wouldn't hold it against you, and I still stand by that. But if you decide to stick around a bit longer, the work I have for you is literally never-ending. I'm sure you know the drill by now.


The Mer-Line telling the player to fuck off in no uncertain terms, followed by Ianthe shrugging and going "all that's left now is job board jobs" is a pretty good indication that this is the last of the game's story.


There are a few more things to talk about in the game, but updates are going to be pretty scarce until I can grind out the next couple of noticeboard levels.