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That was pretty quick, considering the fact the game's been out for less than a month. Anyway, this opening's really neat and a cool departure from the slow-paced opening of FC and the dramatic followup opening of SC. It's totally a Bond movie opening with Kevin being even slicker than Pierce Brosnan. It's also really nice to see both "goofy flirt"-Kevin and "Weissmann murdering"-Kevin getting some screentime. Little note: Kevin's Sacred Breath craft was always capable of curing status ailments, even in SC. It didn't remove debuffs like Tita's upgraded Vital Cannon did, but it did cure abnormalities. Another little note: the panicking NPC on the deck, Aldan? He's from FC and SC. He's an airship spotter you first run into at Bose's landing port where he's making preparations to photograph the Arseille. In SC, he's all over the place, always trying to nab a shot of the Arseille, but always JUUUUUST missing the action. When the Arseille docks in Bose for the dragon capturing operation in SC, that happens to be the one day he's NOT at the airport (airship traffic having been suspended due to the dragon attack and all) and when Estelle tells him the Arseille was in Bose but just took off again afterwards, he completely breaks down. He's still in Bose during Chapter 8, bugging the orbal factory owner to fix up his camera which got disabled by the Aureole. Looks like he still has crappy luck half a year later.  This introduction's a nice call-forward to Cold Steel, with shoutouts to Bareahard, the Kreuzen province, the Reinford Group and the term Merchant of Death being used. There are also nobles cursing "that upstart chancellor". Erpy fucked around with this message at 21:03 on May 28, 2017 |
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May 28, 2017 17:08
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Omobono posted:
It's an easy-to-miss line in FC. When Estelle and Joshua attempt to cross the Sanktheim Gate into the Grancel region and Alba bails them out, he introduces himself to the soldiers as a scholar from North Ambria and the soldiers verify this. Of course, it may have been part of his cover, but as Weissmann points out in SC, a large part of his cover WAS based on the truth of him really being an academic. And yeah, the way Kevin executed Weissmann was just loving spiteful. It'd be like executing Agate by locking him in a small house and setting it on fire or executing Kloe by trapping her on a ship and then sinking it. If it wasn't Weissmann we were talking about, I'd say they were out of line with this.
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May 28, 2017 21:17
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rear end in a top hat supreme
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There's a side event in this game regarding Olivier that essentially kicks off the events in the Cold Steel games.
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May 29, 2017 06:03
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If Erika wasn't so ludicrously over-the-top, she'd probably be obnoxious. Well, she still kind of is and I feel sorry for everyone who has to put up with her, but she's such a fruitcake she's also kind of amusing.
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May 29, 2017 15:52
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Tallgeese posted:Huh. I can only hope Tita gets her personality from her dad, because yeesh. When Tita first brings up Erika in SC, Estelle says "I bet your mom's just like you" and she's like: "Actually, she's not like me at all." It's still possible Tita has grown some additional spunk by the time Cold Steel III rolls around. She should be in the middle of puberty, after all.
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May 29, 2017 16:45
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I'm not sure if Kevin simply moved over to Cid in order to get his opinion after Erika's statements about Agate's grim fate, but it really looked as if he was slooooooowly backing away from her in that "Oh gently caress, this person might be a serial killer"-kind of way. Also LOL at Erika's "greatest power in the universe"-line. I seriously didn't expect that one the first time I saw that scene. Speaking about Erika, the upcoming Cold Steel III Tita's artwork has her wearing her hair in a ponytail with a red ribbon in exactly the same way her mom currently does. Which is a really nice callback.
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May 30, 2017 12:36
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RegalStar posted:You mean they don't have them NOW. Crossbell already has proto-Internet at the time of the 3rd. And Ouroboros already introduced the practice of cybercrime to the world. And already employs several weapon-grade trolls. Whenever the Orbal Net goes mainstream, it'll only be a matter of days before it completely turns to poo poo.
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May 30, 2017 17:08
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Mraagvpeine posted:I'm guessing that Tita talked a lot about Agate and how much fun she has with him and Erika is SC made clear that Tita has somewhat of a crush on Agate. The rest should be obvious, even if Tita is so young and sheltered that her idea of a date is eating icecream together.
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May 31, 2017 08:29
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Never change, Gilbert. Never change. 
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May 31, 2017 11:46
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Junpei posted:You know, that "Enforcer trick" line might actually have a point. You all know that the enforcers are based on tarot cards, right? Well, one of the cards of the tarot is called "The Hermit". This place is called "Hermit's Garden". I don't think that one applies in this case. "The Hermit" has already been revealed in one of the Trails games and I can't see any connection between this place and that person.
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Jun 1, 2017 20:04
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There's no real need to "cheat" in order to get an Info quartz. It's literally in the first chest you run into and you're not fighting any unique monsters before that point, so this is the first Trails in the Sky game where you can potentially have a full monster book on your first playthrough. (though a bug still screws up one or two later entries)
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Jun 2, 2017 11:02
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Her orbment's the same as Joshua's, except with one elemental slot instead of two.
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Jun 2, 2017 23:28
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Kevin probably thought to himself at some point that escaping from this alien plane would require nothing less than the most powerful force in the universe. A few minutes later, Tita was summoned to their side. That monkey paw's still working well. Aside from that, the conversation at the start of the Jade Corridor pointed out that the "higher elements" being in effect is a big frigging deal, especially all three at once. Even the Altered Space area where the Aureole was sealed was limited to the four lower elements. During the Cold Steel games, you come across several areas where the higher elements are active without having to step through a warp, making you wonder after this scene: "WTF is happening in Erebonia?"
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Jun 3, 2017 14:53
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That'd be the same reaction the player who hasn't played 3rd would give. I suspect knowledge about this subject is mainly limited to the Septian Church, since members of the Intelligence Division and Bracer Guild don't really comment on it.
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Jun 3, 2017 16:09
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Omobono posted:I agree that it's probably that they don't know enough to make a proper deal out of it, and the only one that could possibly understand never shares information as a rule ( Cold Steel 1 and 2 spoilers: Potentially the most intriguing is Lunaria Nature Park in Cold Steel II. I'm kinda willing to give the Old Schoolhouse a partial pass, since we know it served as a test to obtain a fragment of a Sept-Terrion and sending visitors to another plane as part of a trial at least makes some sense, even if it's still freaky and even if at the end of Cold Steel II it sends you to a hidden dummy trial dimension that looks SUSPICIOUSLY like the Jade Corridor area we just traversed. Lunaria Park, on the other hand, isn't even indoors and is normal the first time you visit it and the second time you visit it, suddenly...another plane of existence starts bleeding into it or something? 
Erpy fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jun 3, 2017 |
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Jun 3, 2017 19:35
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Junpei posted:He's a character from the East, which is like a smoothie of China, Japan, and other Asian countires, so it would make sense for him to have that name. Doesn't explain Walter having his name, but c'est la vie. Calvard's population partially consists of people whose ancestors are originally from that area and partially of immigrants who came from farther east of the Republic. It's possible Zin and Kilika have immigrant origins while Walter doesn't. (heck, there's two folks named Walter in SC, Enforcer VIII and a newly minted senator staying in Grancel and both are from Calvard, so it might be a common Calvardian name)
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Jun 4, 2017 01:13
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:Yeah, the order in which people join is fairly random, although there are a few points where it's pretty obvious whose gonna come out to play. Tita coming out first was something I liked, though. All her development thus far in the series has been in relation to Estelle, Agate, or her grandpa. It's cool to see her standing on her own two feet and seeing who she is on her own. I'm not sure if I'd immediately call it random. Based on SC, I do see some logic in it. Slight 3rd spoilers based on joining order: After Tita, the first people to join your party are Julia, Mueller and Josette. In the original PC version of SC, Julia wasn't even a proper character, just a dummy character used in two battles without a stat sheet or battle orbment, her list of spells was hardcoded. In XSeed's versions, she was playable in the Liber Ark chapter, but only when the very final dungeon part became available. Same with Mueller minus the cameo battles. Josette was only playable during a part of the final chapter too. Given their lack of screentime in SC, it makes sense that 3rd would make them join near the start so the player is forced to use them. Joshua was the next one to join, which also makes some sense since he was absent from the party for a large part of SC. On the other hand, depending on who you picked as a partner, both Agate and Schera had the potential to be in the party from the start of Chapter 1 to the end of the final Chapter, so they both join fairly late. This is even more true for Estelle who was only out of the party during two short segments in SC, so she was the last of the SC cast to join. Kloe, Olivier and Zin fall somewhat in the middle. (Kloe and Olivier join up early in SC, but are absent during one or two later chapters, Zin joins up later than most, but never becomes unavailable afterwards) Anelace is a bit of an exception to the rule, though maybe the fact that she joins after a lot of others in 3rd is because while she was only available briefly in SC, whenever she was available, the game forced you to use her and she couldn't be benched so the player was definitely familiar with her skillset and playing style even if Petal Dance was useless because buffs didn't last very long at the start of the game. That leaves Tita. I believe she joined first in 3rd because many people considered her a low-tier character in SC and several people mentioned they never used her except when she was plot-mandated in Chapter 2 and 5. Personally, I thought she was alright though her role gradually shifted from crowd debuffer to support unit as enemies became immune to the blind status and she gained her ailment and debuff-curing Vital Cannon 2 craft, but she certainly wasn't top-tier. I think 3rd wanted to "redeem" her in a way, so they made her join the party at a time when your options were still very limited and both of her crafts had plenty of use. (Smoke Cannon because most stuff hadn't started resisting blind yet and its AOE got upgraded from Medium to Large, Vital Cannon 2 because it was always a solid healing/support craft and at the start your party healing options were limited so you were forced to use it) And this time, by the time she's threatened to go back to benchwarmer status, she gets her own proto-spirit unification to manhandle stuff with. I'm not so sure why the developers went through hoops to "redeem" Tita and not Josette who was lower tier than her in SC. Maybe Falcom considers Tita a "serious heroine", as supported by her return to the stage in Cold Steel III, while Josette remains a joke character who's fairly good at most stuff (remote support, cooking, looking after people, running the finances for a delivery service) except combat.
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Jun 4, 2017 10:14
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Some Numbers posted:"Slight" spoilers. Well, anybody who looked at the game's site should probably know who the cast consists of.
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Jun 4, 2017 14:21
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Even if the player has somehow forgotten the entire plot of SC, the actual contents of the first sequence inside the door make the answer to the second riddle death glaringly obvious.
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Jun 4, 2017 17:30
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In addition to the guardian creatures having a counter that heals you until about halfway through the fight, they're also vulnerable to the blind ailment, so Smoke Cannon shuts them down and never allows them to recover. Erika's and Albert's relationship is already hinted at in SC when Tita says with a completely straight face that in her dream where her parents came home, her mom and granddad got into a "loving fistfight" for the first time in a long while. Even so, Tita's surprisingly normal given the family she grew up in if you discount the extreme geekiness she's prone to around technology.
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Jun 5, 2017 12:03
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I kinda wonder if the characters (rather than the player) actually end up seeing that stuff at all. Exhibit A: Star Door 14 (the final one you open). There's no way the characters wouldn't comment on that if they had actually seen that scene. Kevin later makes a remark deducing what that Star Door blatantly showed, which he wouldn't have needed to if he had seen it.
Erpy fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Jun 5, 2017 |
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Jun 5, 2017 12:45
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That's Star Door 15 you're talking about (Star Door 14 is the one that requires all the other doors to be opened) and they used the original one, not the shortened console version.
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Jun 5, 2017 13:34
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Yeah, it's kinda related to the exact nature of the place you're in and how it came to be.
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Jun 5, 2017 17:10
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FC had Agate nearly dying to a fatal dose of neurotoxin. SC had him thoroughly thrashed by Loewe. 3rd wouldn't be a proper Trails game if Agate wasn't subjected to a new round of physical abuse. RIP Agate. I do like the scenes in this part. It's the first and possibly the only time Erika's on screen without being a total fruitcake for just a little while. And Tita referring to Renne as her friend, speaking up on her behalf and trying to forge a connection to her is all kinds of  . Especially since though Renne had a handful of lines acknowledging Tita's presence if you took the latter along to the enforcer fights, almost all of her interactions were with Estelle, leaving Tita's connection with her much more below the radar than the Zin-Walter and Schera-Luci connections.
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Jun 6, 2017 12:27
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Yes, he scrapped
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Jun 6, 2017 18:42
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Tita has a bit of a schoolgirl crush on Agate, but she's also too innocent/sheltered to think twice about the implications of that and seems content to try and get him to eat icecream with her. Erika and Dan probably picked up on that, so it's reasonable they're a bit wary and wondering how he feels about her. Dan's the reasonable one who's taking a wait-and-see approach. Erika's the crazy overprotective one who still sees Tita as a slightly taller-than-usual 3-year old who's just the cutest thing in the world, aren't you, yes, you are, yes you are. Seriously, the way she babytalks Tita isn't how you generally talk to a daughter who's about to hit puberty. Estelle's threatened to brain her dad for displaying only a sliver of that kind of interaction. Even if Tita had developed an affection for a boy close to her own age, Erika would probably still freak out because it meant her precious cutywuty puffmuffin was starting to grow up and might at some point no longer be hers alone to coddle and fawn over.
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Jun 6, 2017 23:12
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Epsilon Moonshade posted:She is 13. She's too young to be fooling around with someone Agate's age, but she's too old for her parents to assume that IF that's what's happening, she doesn't know (or is too young to understand) what's going on. Not that Erika cares. In Tita's case, she IS extremely sheltered. Well, maybe sheltered isn't the exact right word, but Tita barely ever attended Sunday School even before FC and didn't really interact with other kids very much due to spending so much time tinkering with machinery in her granddad's workshop and the ZCF, so it's not too far-fetched that she'd be more clueless than the average 13-year old on that particular subject. And Erika wasn't gonna give her the talk until she hit 30 anyway. :P
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Jun 7, 2017 08:54
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Unfortunately, whenever you get a new character they tend to start with a pretty crappy weapon though at least the game's usually kind enough to give you a new save/shop pillar before facing a major boss.
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Jun 7, 2017 18:47
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Yeah, the form-changing was also an interesting twist and quick reality check for players who were tempted to try and bust the boss down with S-crafts as soon as they could.
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Jun 8, 2017 11:46
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A certain other character hits twice as well, but only on the enemy the chain craft was aimed at originally.
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Jun 8, 2017 14:27
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quote:Wait, Father! I haven't finished my confession yet! When Brittany was like: "I'm not clever enough for hundreds of more chest phrases!" a few days before the game's release, I submitted those two. I found myself grinning like a loon when I stumbled upon them in the actual game the week after.
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Jun 10, 2017 13:42
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:You know, I never gave Josette a fair shot, in either game. Nothing I could see about her impressed me. Maybe I'll see her differently here. She was my preferred reserve member, though. I did since I'm a bit OCD about keeping everyone's levels about even, but she's still low-tier. Her defense-down pushback skill can be useful since all but the strongest bosses are vulnerable to it and her fainting skill can take foes out of the fight for quite some time if it connects, but she still doesn't really have anything she's actually good at in battle. Her remote ability is considered among the best though, since the boosts to sepith and item drop rate help you outfit the large cast of characters, so in a sadistic twist of fate, the game actually encourages you to keep her benched.
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Jun 12, 2017 13:04
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Josette's quartz grid is similar to Estelle's; two lines of equal length. But where Estelle has no slot limitations, Josette has two earth-based ones, which is one of the suckier elements for spell-casting purposes AND guarantees her attack receives additional nerfing.
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Jun 13, 2017 09:10
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They were arguably doing buttmonkey boy a favor by not immediately fishing him out and leave him to Campanella's whims afterwards. Anyway, now we know how Gilbert ended up where he was in the prologue. I love how several of the scenes are interconnected this way. By the way, I found this minigame to be surprisingly tough on normal. I beat it twice, but usually with very little energy left. Maybe I just suck at these kinds of shooting games. At least you have mouse aiming.
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Jun 13, 2017 16:42
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I'm still a little surprised that the only mention they got in the Cold Steel series so far has been a quick shoutout, especially with the whole noble caste to which they used to belong being central to the plot. Maybe in Cold Steel III.
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Jun 13, 2017 18:43
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AweStriker posted:That'd be Luciola, and it's not a rivalry so much as "complicated feelings about the circus". It's not exactly a rivalry and it's not exactly complicated either. The relationship between Schera and Luci is pretty much a mirror image of the relationship between Schera and Estelle and even though they ended up on different sides, their relationship is still kind of similar. Epsilon Moonshade posted:I vaguely remember that, but hell - give them a star door at least. Maybe replace Star Door #8 - it had neat worldbuilding info, but nothing that really seemed to tie into anything current very well. The series ain't over yet. I mean, heck, Tita and Agate were recently confirmed for Cold Steel III despite not being directly involved in the whole civil uprising there and with the Capuas' shipping business spanning most of West Zemuria, Falcom doesn't even need a contrived reason to include them whenever they feel like they add to the plot.
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Jun 13, 2017 22:06
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Omobono posted:I dunno, both Weissmann and the literal demons from Gehenna are nowhere as difficult as the single strongest swordsman in Zemuria. Yeah, Schwarz is German for "black". And seeing that he spoke about "his Lord having been revived", he's not the main villain, merely the dragon. Erpy fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jun 14, 2017 |
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Jun 14, 2017 18:04
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The purpose of the Recluse Cube is explained as a plot point later on.
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Jun 14, 2017 22:55
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You're a little too eager, Josette. Somewhere in Phantasma, a very large stick with your name on it is being brightly polished.
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Jun 15, 2017 13:30
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:So the Salt Pale isn't that old at all. You'd think that'd be something people would still mention on occasion. It's something that happened in a very remote area of the world during a time orbal radio didn't exist yet and even airships had been a recent invention in hi-tech Liberl, meaning they weren't in use all the way up north. I imagine the population of Liberl might not even have heard about it and even most Erebonians wouldn't have known it happened or if they knew, they'd barely knew any specifics. Omobono posted:Seems that Weissmann ( Yeah, the file confirms Weissmann was truly from North Ambria and it wasn't just a made-up part of his Alba identity. Using the salt pale on somebody who lost his home and family and had his life left in tatters because of that very object is just fuckin' spiteful and against anybody but a gleeful sadist like Weissmann, I'd say this was over the top. It'd be like executing Magneto by gassing him. My hunch is that it wasn't personal, but the Church simply knew they were dealing with an Anguis from Ouroboros and they knew they only had one shot at him before he'd get his guard up, so they employed the one means they had to instantly and irreversably take out an already powerful individual backed by an even more powerful group. Still, it wouldn't surprise me if Ein (who's probably referred to in the file as the one who approved the use of the salt bolt) took note of the cruel irony and let out a trollish snicker as she signed Weissmann's death warrant. I don't think Weissmann and Kevin knew each other. The Septian Church is a large organisation and by the time he was kicked out, Weissmann was a high-ranking bishop while Kevin was still a nobody at the very bottom of the ladder. There's a 16-year age gap between the two. The very reason Kevin was able to blindside Weissmann the way he did was BECAUSE he and his target didn't know each other beforehand, so he was able to get close without Weissmann becoming wary of him. Erpy fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Jun 16, 2017 |
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Jun 16, 2017 15:14
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