Greg continuing to Try This reminds me of when the GM reveals something about your character's backstory that you then try and lean into only you never specced for it so it just kinds of whiffs each time. If he was the propaganda guy surely he should be good at charisma checks? (Answer: Nope.)
All Aboard The Magic Hellbus! Let's Play Limbus Company
- Thread starter ZerbanDaGreat
- Start date
- Let's Play
Greg continuing to Try This reminds me of when the GM reveals something about your character's backstory that you then try and lean into only you never specced for it so it just kinds of whiffs each time. If he was the propaganda guy surely he should be good at charisma checks? (Answer: Nope.)
drearyArchon
Chaos Lord Chaos
- Location
- The Floor of Social Sciences
It's stated that pocketing Enkephalin without permission is a crime in the Limbus Website/Loading screen.
Abnormalities said:
So its fair to say that Hopkins was at least in breach of his contract with the Company, which has consequences as Vergillius helpfully illustrated.
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
There's like... technically room to be given for Hopkins in this case, in which he isn't an Employee for Limbus Company, he was a contractor, which means different standards afaik.
So the pocketing of Enk may not have been a death sentence for him.
drearyArchon
Chaos Lord Chaos
- Location
- The Floor of Social Sciences
Hopkins also left the Sinners to die in a poison cloud and was planning on lying to the Company about it. Attempted manslaughter aside, he still abandoned the contract mid-way.
What I love most about this is how it shows the true scale of the city. This little town is in the middle of the wing, not on near the outskirts just in the middle of a single district.
questioningmeme
Just be yourself
- Location
- River of Light
Yeah, but I don't think Hopkins would be considered Neurotypical. Atleast, by our standards anyway.
As Dreary pointed out, that was rather shortsighted of him, a rather dumb move too.
It might be lack of experience, but it could easily be because he's just slow and suffers some kind of mental deficiency regarding logic thinking.
Since you know. He's planning on lying to a Color that is standing outside waiting for his charges.
I don't know about the City though but I highly doubt they have 'normal' human standards (Rule 1 so I can't talk more).
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Fourthmatchflame
Fangirl of Ryoshu and Scorched Girl
- Location
- A certain Pale Librarians Book.
- Pronouns
- She/Fae
I mean, they do look big enough to contain an outfit underneath. not like these guys can afford the really good suits, anyway.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The most interesting thing here, beyond all the character bits, to me at least...
Why does the superstar hero of the mega-healing regeneration corporation have mechanical arms? I mean, I'm sure part of it is that they're part of his combat style and losing his laser-hands would probably make him less effective, but it's still a very blatant thing. It feels very much 'you're a contractor not an employee'.
Also curious why K-corp is letting N-corp perform operations on their soil. Are the Boughs so dangerous to have possession of they'd rather palm that white elephant off onto a competitor, and allowing N-corp to massacre their citizens and burn down their towns is part of that deal? Are they just going to use N-corp to throw bodies at the problem and then swoop in to pinch it when N-corp are too weak to protect it? Presumably N-corp has some sort of fanaticism/religion tech (taboo tech? given how taboos have only just come up in this Canto and we know K-corp is the regen/healing corp), given that they're apparently all DEVS VVLT assholes, and there's no way K-corp didn't know what they'd be doing; they could also be using N-corp to purge undesirables in a conveniently deniable way, of course, though it doesn't seem like the sort of sleight of hand any of the corps would bother with.
Why does the superstar hero of the mega-healing regeneration corporation have mechanical arms? I mean, I'm sure part of it is that they're part of his combat style and losing his laser-hands would probably make him less effective, but it's still a very blatant thing. It feels very much 'you're a contractor not an employee'.
Also curious why K-corp is letting N-corp perform operations on their soil. Are the Boughs so dangerous to have possession of they'd rather palm that white elephant off onto a competitor, and allowing N-corp to massacre their citizens and burn down their towns is part of that deal? Are they just going to use N-corp to throw bodies at the problem and then swoop in to pinch it when N-corp are too weak to protect it? Presumably N-corp has some sort of fanaticism/religion tech (taboo tech? given how taboos have only just come up in this Canto and we know K-corp is the regen/healing corp), given that they're apparently all DEVS VVLT assholes, and there's no way K-corp didn't know what they'd be doing; they could also be using N-corp to purge undesirables in a conveniently deniable way, of course, though it doesn't seem like the sort of sleight of hand any of the corps would bother with.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Why does someone need to not be neurotypical to be a shortsighted greedy asshole? You need to make rent and pay your taxes somehow you know and who would be there to contradict his story when they're all dead? He doesn't know they can be revived after all. You see people betraying each other for money all the time, what makes that something only someone not neurotypical would do?
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Even in our society 'short sighted greedy asshole who only thinks as far as his next score and who'd sell his mother for a dollar' is about as neurotypical as you can get, unfortunately. It's almost like LC is trying to do some social commentary or something with its contrast of that with the cast of Sinners and how they just don't gel with the way the world is, despite the world as it is being happy to use them to turn a profit regardless.
Fourthmatchflame
Fangirl of Ryoshu and Scorched Girl
- Location
- A certain Pale Librarians Book.
- Pronouns
- She/Fae
theres also a pretty easy queer reading to that, witch is profoundly relevant to this canto specifically, considering Demians themes.
drearyArchon
Chaos Lord Chaos
- Location
- The Floor of Social Sciences
Oh no, Hopkins had overheard the Sinners discussing Dante's revivification abilities early on in the dungeon. He took an interest but backed off after they mentioned it can only revive them.
When the poison gas started spreading, he just kinda... forgot that Dante had a prosthetic head? And thus did not need to breath and could just revive the Sinners later.
Maybe he assumed Dante would just croak without the Sinners protecting them.
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ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
I don't think it's particularly appropriate to pathologise a minor character being greedy and a bit dumb in a cyberpunk dystopia story and would prefer we refocus the conversation.
- Location
- Spain
Pfff not with that attitude.
I am sure someone in the city has a way to extract kindness out of people and store it for sale.
- Location
- Ireland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Incidentally, the town's name of Calw is the actual hometown of Hermann Hesse, the author of Demian. Initially, Demian was presented as an autobiography that Hesse produced under the pseudonym of Emil Sinclair, so while it was never named in the actual novel it's pretty fitting to use it for Sinclair's hometown.
Fourthmatchflame
Fangirl of Ryoshu and Scorched Girl
- Location
- A certain Pale Librarians Book.
- Pronouns
- She/Fae
I guess, in a sense, nobody really fits in the city. its very nature is inherently corrosive to humanity.
you'd have to abandon all emotion and live as a soulless machine to truly be of the city. interesting, considering other elements of the setting.
you'd have to abandon all emotion and live as a soulless machine to truly be of the city. interesting, considering other elements of the setting.
Fourthmatchflame
Fangirl of Ryoshu and Scorched Girl
- Location
- A certain Pale Librarians Book.
- Pronouns
- She/Fae
I think the big takeaway that PM has been pushing, to paraphrase Roland from LoR: you don't need to be weird to be a psycho, and you don't need to be a psycho to be weird. They are completely independent.
Canto III: The Unconfronting (Part 2) - A Bad Dream
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
Battle begins on the road to Calw, and we meet the gentlement we'll be dealing with for the rest of the Canto - Inquisitors of Nagel und Hammer, and a vicious pain in the ass for every launch-day gamer.
First and possibly foremost, in an oddly realistic touch their antique plate-and-mail armour affords them resistance to slash damage but vulnerability to blunt. However Outis' Backslash does have a damage conditional for outspeeding her foe that basically cancels out the 25% slash damage reduction, and while these Kleinhammers have a competitive 3-5 speed range their more heavily-armoured brethren will be much slower, and Ryoshu's Brushstroke and Splatter even more easily counter the slash weakness so long as she doesn't go first. Sinclair will be having a little more trouble, but really this whole canto is Struggle Hours for him so that's nothing special. No, the real workhorse IDs here are Ishmael and Faust - both are mono-blunt or near enough, both have blunt base EGO, and the former is fast enough to intercept the most dangerous blows while the latter's next-turn Offence Level Down and next-turn Attack Power Down attached to her skill 2 and skill 3 will be vital considering the at times overwhelming clash power of N Corp.
For the time being though we just have the Kleinhammers to deal with, and a chance to talk about a few things. First is that they're positive and reverse coin hybrids, the three types of Kleinhammer (Servile, Compliant and Worshipping) all sharing the skill Inquisition which is a Lust reverse-coin with a relatively unimpressive max power of 8. But here's the thing - it's a two-coin skill with a coin power of -3. If, for example, a Kleinhammer comes at Ishmael with Inquisition and she clashes with Loggerhead, that's a ceiling of 8 and a floor of 2 contesting a ceiling of 10 and a floor of 3. Now let's say Ishmael wins, so one coin is destroyed and they clash again. Now it's a ceiling of 8 and a floor of 5 contesting a ceiling of 10 and a floor of 3. Even if the Kleinhammer hits heads again, if Ishmael doesn't also hit heads she's now fucked. Reverse-coin skills just get more and more difficult to beat in a clash as they lose more coins, and while this still ultimately causes them to deal less damage on a clash win just the same as positive coin skills, "less damage than you would've taken anyway" is still a much worse result than "cancel enemy attack completely and then fracture their skull". This is the benefit to reverse-coin skills I alluded to way back during the prologue, on top of the existing benefit of being empowered by the otherwise omni-useful Paralyse status, and it's why the mere two reverse-coin IDs playable ingame as of this writing (but really only one of them, the folks at home know which one, don't worry we'll be talking about him extensively) are deceptively difficult to defeat directly.
Next we've got their normal skills. N Corp are heavy on debuffs and Bleed, particularly through the use of their unique debuff Nails. See, the problem with Bleed is that a target with Bleed is gonna burn through their Bleed Count extremely quickly during pitched battles, especially if they get to make unopposed multi-coin attacks or have multiple action slots. Nails obviate this problem through their staying power - a target suffering Nails gains Bleed Count at turn end equal to Nails, and then the Nails count is merely halved (rounded down, so 1 Nail will vanish) and sticks around for further stacking. This means that losing clashes can steadily snowball into a serious problem for you even if the direct damage itself is not really a problem (through pierce/sin resistance). Servile Kleinhammers exclusively inflict Bleed and Nails, Worshipping ones inflict Nails and Bind, and finally Compliant ones inflict a highly troublesome combo of Paralyse, Defence Power Down and Bind. To make matters worse the Joy of Execution buff shared by all N Corp zealots gives them 2 Damage Up the turn after they successfully kill an enemy, so if a Sinner drops you may be in for a death spiral.
The new clash animations are still a lot of fun to watch, especially when this particular kind (a block/guard sprite opposes a block/guard sprite so it becomes a spark-grinding weapon lock until the winner dramatically breaks free and sends the loser sliding back) manages to sync up just right. Sinclair's base ID is heavily focused around pursuing and winning clashes, so it's a particular glowup for him.
After the battle, Vergilius greets the Sinners as they return to the bus and asks if the Inquisitors were trickier than their usual foes, the rat bitch. Once again Rodion needles him about helping, and once again Vergilius rebuffs her saying that there'd be no point to any of it if he shitstomped everything in their path for them. Ishmael, doubtless sensing a lost cause when she sees it, instead wonders aloud what caused the N Corp goons to label them heretics in the first place. Dante, having been paying attention, reminds her that the guy pretty explicitly pointed to Mx Clockhead as the heretical element in need of purging.
Meursault mutters to himself, unprompted.
Dante: <Experience?>
Meursault: "Humans are made to have experiences and actions appropriate of their worth... That is what they say of it."
Sinclair is barely holding it together, and though Rodion shoots him a look of pity she knows there's not much she can do about it any more. Charon, unaffected, draws Vergilius' attention to the radio buzzing. Effie's voice just barely comes through, the barest hint of something about Saude being lost in static - Gregor takes charge for once, implicitly snatching the handset straight out of Vergilius' hand to hail Effie for a sitrep.
But it is no longer him on the other side.
Gregor: "Effie?"
Ishmael: "Was that... Effie's voice? Or something else?"
Ishmael: "No, actually... Was that even a human voice at all?"
And then, faintly, there's something else. Not words, but a shrill whistle. A whistle that plunges Sinclair even deeper into the depths of his spiral.
Dante: <Calm down, Sinclair. What do you mean by whistles, and who is this 'wretched' woman?>
Sinclair: "She's waiting for me. That was a message calling for me!"
Narration: Resentful tears were streaming from Sinclair's face as he rambled.
Ishmael catches sight of another pack of N Corp Inquisitors down the road, and Sinclair's courage falters entirely.
Sinclair: "Can't we... just head back? I don't wanna go - let's just turn around. Just tip the steering wheel and..."
Rodion: "Kiddo... what's wrong? What're you so worried you'll walk into?"
Sinclair: "We shouldn't go. We'll all die - we need to go back."
Yet, mercifully, it's Outis who acts first to silence Sinclair's wails.
Outis: "I delivered a light blow to the stomach to knock him unconscious for a short while, nothing more."
Vergilius: "We're in agreement for once, it seems. I was this close to stepping in."
Outis: "I don't need cowards on my battlefield. Can't I throw him out of the bus?"
Dante: <That... might be a bit too far.>
Outis: "... if you say so, Manager."
Outis shoots Sinclair a look of displeasure where he lies. Dante can only wonder at what caused Sinclair to oppose something so strongly, to the point of overwhelming his usually timid and nonconfrontational nature. But they pull back from that curiosity, that desire to know and understand more - or rather, lack the will to pursue it - and by the time Sinclair awakens from Outis' knockout blow the next battle has already begun. Sinclair stares vacantly out the window.
Dante: <... The others are all out fighting.>
Sinclair: "I'm... sorry. I'll go join them."
Two more battles with N Corp Kleinhammers ensue, the bus forging its way further and further through the woods towards Calw, but our next twist in the story comes with the bus' arrival in town proper in chapter 3-13 - Silent Night.
Ishmael: "Ugh... what a mess this is, huh."
Ishmael: "By the way... Don't you hear a familiar song from somewhere?"
Heathcliff: "Oh, yeah, I know this one. Used to hear this tune an awful lot on snowy days..."
Gregor: "They played it a bunch during wartime to raise our spirits. Did the exact opposite for me."
Silent Night is playing over the town loudspeakers, broadcast to every corner of the burning nightmare. The song choice is so strange, yet so resonant, that the Sinners stop to consider what memories it stirs within them - even Dante.
Narration: It's definitely familiar, but it doesn't bring up any clear images in my head. However, I could still feel a faint splash of feeling from deep in my heart.
Narration: Maybe I knew this song before I lost my memory. The mist of emotion roused inside me, though... it doesn't feel precious or warm.
Narration: An ache.
Narration: An inexplicable sting is what I felt.
Sinclair: "It was snowy like this... and that song was playing..."
Narration: All sorts of internal organs and mechanical parts were hung from the branches, as if someone put peoples' innards on full display.
Rodion: "Bleck... Isn't this going too far?"
Ryoshu: "A classic... but, more kitschy than anything."
Meursault: "... there are no survivors nearby."
Dante finally realises what all this horror, gore and pageantry adds up to. It's beginning to look a lot like-
???: "Enjoying your Noel, everyone? The night isn't really silent, but it sure is holy."
Dante: <Isn't Christmas still a fair way off?>
Ishmael: "You're right, it's not any time soon."
Kromer: "I don't know how you managed to get here, but you're trespassing on private property. As you can see... this hallowed ground is undergoing our nailing judgement. I hope you like the decorations I set up."
Kromer: "Well, let's just say that you got lost... Turn back now and a fine will be all you have to pay. I'm feeling generous... Today is the Nativity after all!"
Kromer: "Oh, before that. Is Guido there?"
Kromer: "Good. Just in case, do you see any heretics over there?"
The massive N Corp enforcer turns to stare at the Sinners, and his eyes invariably alight on Dante. The pressure of his gaze is such that the Sinners are "froze[n] completely still, as if his glare nailed [them] to the ground", but what's important about Guido's response isn't the obvious.
Guido: "I see an impure one and their followers."
Guido: "And with them... the child you spoke of."
And at this, Kromer's tone changes entirely.
Kromer: "Hahaha! Really! My Sinclair is back? Come see me, Sinclair. I'll be waiting at that familiar spot!"
Sinclair: "Gr... hrrrkkh... Kro... mer..."
Narration: I can hear Sinclair grinding and gnashing his teeth. He made a dreadful noise; I couldn't be sure if it was from hatred or fear.
Kromer: "Take out the rest, Guido. Or should I myself? I wouldn't mjind."
Guido: "I urge you to focus on hammering the impure, O One Who Grips."
Kromer: "Hahahahaha! Good, good! Let's keep up the purification! Now then, everyone. Merry Christmas!"
More of N Corp's inquisitors gather to stand with Guido, and the Sinners are in for another gruelling battle.
Another boss-type stage, with two waves of ordinary enemies for the Sinners to warm up and gain SP/sin resources with before the main event. The first wave is just more Kleinhammers, but the second mixes in some Mittelhammers for the first time - you'll see them in a second, but they're basically just Kleinhammers but with slightly different helmets, more armour, and more purity seals. These come in Scourging and Interrogative variants, sharing certain traits: Counters that inflict Nails (all but guaranteeing a certain amount of incoming Nails), the three-coin reverse-coin skill Assertive Inquisition that inflicts a colossal 10 Bind to the target if they're unfortunate enough to have 5 Nails when hit, Aggressive/Oppressive Preaching which inflict 2 Fragile/2 Attack Power Down next turn on hit respectively, or reflect said debuffs to the attacker on clash lose, and finally the rather deadly passive Noble Be Thy Sacrifice. This gives the Mittelhammer 1 Attack Power Up next turn if an ally is slain, and it stacks, which can spiral out of control and effectively give the lucky Mittelhammer a God Turn if you kill too many of his allies at once. Besides that, Scourging Inquisitors have a rough as hell bread and butter attack called Rough Nailing which boasts a considerable 3+3x3 direct power on top of inflicting 3 Bleed Potency and 3 Nails next turn on hit, while Interrogative Inquisitors just inflict a bunch of Bind and Paralyse.
Upside: did you know that Sinclair's s3 fucking launches his target a good 12ft in the air on the second coin so he can launch them across the screen with the third? The boy is The Fucking Strong. He can just Do That, no augments no nothing, just pure German fury and hormones. What kind of hormones? Don't worry about it-
Wave 3 brings the third and final variant of N Corp Inquisitors. Frustratingly these are I guess also Mittelhammers despite having totally different equipment, because Grosshammer is reserved for Guido even though he clearly holds his own unique position as Kromer's second in command. So frankly I'll make a command decision and call these heavy-armoured lads Grosshammers.
Anyhoo the Grosshammers come in two variants, Obsessive and Joyous, and continue the linear progression of N Corp zealots being increasingly well-trained to fuck your mouth. Not only do they have the same Noble Be Thy Sacrifice passive the Mittelhammers are packing, they have the skills Congregate and Unite respectively; the former applies 1 Fanatic to 2 random allies next turn, while the latter boosts the SP of 2 allies by 15 points next turn. The utility of the latter is obvious, but how about the former? Well, Fanatic is a special buff designed for N Corp synergy, where the beneficiary gains Base Power equal to their Fanatic count when attacking a target with any amount of Nails in them. Yes, this can stack, and it doesn't require any particular threshold of Nails. This is a nightmare if too many Inquisitors get Fanatic all at once because it's effectively impossible to prevent any Nails from landing in your team, through sheer action economy if not Counters or plain bad luck. Joyous ones can also, what else, inflict a bunch of next-turn Bind and Attack Power Down in order to cripple your clashing for the next round of hammering and nailing. Then, as if that weren't bad enough, both share the skill Ponderous Inquisition. If the target of Ponderous Inquisition is unlucky enough to have at least 5 Nails (or only 3, because the first coin inflicts 2 on heads hit) then they take a crippling 10 Attack Power Down and Paralyse for next turn, basically rendering them helpless before whatever the enemy sends their way next. So don't get fucking hit by it.
And then we have Guido. He boasts a colossal health pool for the point in the story we encounter him, all the aforementioned problematic N Corp faction passives, as well as Hammer Of The One Who Grips which passively heals 10 SP for all allies on the field every turn - including himself, including the very turn in which you first reach him. If you don't already have maxed SP or a similarly overwhelming SP advantage, this is going to be a real problem. Oh and he generally deals another 50% damage if he has Fanatic, just to add insult to injury. He and everyone fielded with him comes with potentially easy access to Fanatic through his Hammers, Heed Me..! skill, which applies teamwide Fanatic on top of 10 SP for the two allies with the least SP (again, including him). His Spike Drive skill rolls a kind of pitiful 5-8 but if allowed to slip through the cracks somehow it inflicts a horrid 4 next-turn Nails, setting the unfortunate target up for all the worst 5+ Nails conditionals including his own - You Are Cleansed Of Sin, which will simply instantly stagger the target at 5 Nails.
Fortunately he's weak to blunt and Ishmael decided he had too many functional ribs. As he only fields two Inquisitors for backup his kit can't quite yield the worst of its evil quickly enough to save him, and with the massive advantage in SP and action slots the Sinners yielded in the first two waves they swiftly overwhelm the Grosshammers and beat Guido to death with hammers - he does, however, escape offscreen rather than exploding, hinting that we have yet to see the last of him.
The Sinners are feeling about as much fatigue in fighting all these fucking racists as most launch-day players were as the level gap grew larger and larger with no end in sight. Outis is disgusted that Ishmael would call for a retreat with the enemy still in sight, which Ishmael answers with a trademark flippant dismissal, but with Dante siding with her Outis has no leg to stand on and quietly acquiesces to the withdrawal order. Dante uses the time to instead turn to Sinclair.
Dante: <Sinclair, do you know what that Kromer meant by 'that familiar spot'?>
Sinclair: "That's... well..."
Narration: Sinclair shook. He was seemingly overwhelmed with dread. But I could also see a teeth-grinding anger in him that surpassed his fear.
Narration: Looking at him, a thought blossomed in my mind.
Dante: <You need to talk, Sinclair. Tell us what you know, and you'll prevent half the deaths we might suffer."
Outis mentions the greater chances of success, but Dante isn't even paying attention to her. They're only fretting over whether they're doing the right thing as the manager, watching and waiting for the moment where Sinclair at last takes a deep breath and answers.
Sinclair: "... my house. That's where Kromer must be."
Heathcliff: "So, you know that bird? Bollocks, my head is still pounding from her shrill laugh."
Sinclair: "... I met her at school."
Rodion: "Oh boy, she's a friend of yours? Whatever's going on, sure hope you can talk it out..."
Rodion: "..."
Rodion: "My bad."
Not much else you can say after something like that, is there?
Narration: A prosthetic head hanging from a tree slowly turned to face us. Lights and sparks occasionally flickered within.
A Prosthetic Head: "Why... did you... return..."
Rodion: "... Sinclair, are those your neighbours?"
Sinclair: "It looks like they were... I really hope that isn't the case, though..."
Rodion and Sinclair watch grimly as the bare wires of the ruined prosthetic spark and short-circuit, the severed head's movements ceasing in a surge of discordant electronic noise. But then...
A Prosthetic Head: "Silent night..."
A Prosthetic Head: "Holy night..."
Every head hanging from the tree or burning in the fire beneath is singing the same song.
Ishmael: "It's clearer than ever now... Prosthetic body parts are 'heresy' to them."
Faust: "Though it has been quite a while since prostheses were first introduced to the City... many people still find them foreign and alienating."
Sinclair: "... our town."
Sinclair: "Our town was called... 'the Holy Site of Nest K's Prosthetic Industry'. Most of the residents worked in manufacturing high-end prosthesis components."
Sinclair: "Kromer has been keeping an eye on our town for a long time."
Gregor: "So, was your family..."
Sinclair: "Yeah, my father was the owner of a fledgeling prosthetics company too. ."
Ishmael: "No."
Ishmael: "The way I see it, attributing it to a high-flown cause of any kind is giving them too much credit."
Ishmael: "They're... just lunatics, consumed by madness and violence."
And Ishmael would know a thing or two about delusional madmen driven by high-minded justifications for their obsessions and pride, wouldn't she?
Sinclair spents a time looking at the grotesque 'Christmas' parody in silence. Then, at last, he turns to Dante.
Sinclair: "Manager, I have a question if it's alright with you."
Dante: <What is it?>
Sinclair: "Well... how does it feel?"
Dante: <Feel?>
Sinclair: "Yeah."
For a moment the music cuts out, leaving Sinclair's unnervingly flat and almost combative tone wholly unvarnished. The question leaves Dante taken aback, both because no one has ever asked them that before, and because without their memories they have no point of comparison.
Sinclair: "Oh! It's- um... I'm not trying to argue with you or anything."
Sinclair: "... T-that was probably rude of me. I apologise."
Dante: <No need, it's alright.>
Fuck, Dante, you gotta fish up a skerrick of self-esteem one of these days.
Dante: <I'm afraid I can't answer that... I don't remember a single thing about my life before this clock.>
Sinclair: "I see..."
Sinclair: "My family said it's no different from wearing a hat or a watch..."
Sinclair: "But I just couldn't picture it well no matter how I approached it."
Sinclair: "And now, I'm the only survivor thanks to that."
Dante: <I'm sure the procedure seemed terrifying at such a young age. You don't have to feel guilty about that.>
Sinclair: "That's not it..."
Sinclair: "I'm afraid I'm not as innocent as you might think, Dante..."
Sinclair hangs his head. Dante tries to think of something to say, anything, and comes up short. Only silence, sparks, and the roar of flames remains to comfort Sinclair.
Somehow, against all odds, the boy managed to roll the most traumatising canto so far. Gregor and Rodion had to face past failures but Sinclair has that and a combo platter with a clear and present threat in the form of plate-armoured racists cavorting around the German countryside burning and staking (or rather, nailing) everyone they find for the crime of being a cyborg or associating with cyborgs. In a city where cybernetic procedures are entirely commonplace, not to mention! But it's interesting too, isn't it? That we spent the first chunk of this canto being given a front-row seat to just how powerful K Corp's singularity is at the regeneration and preservation of the flesh, only to learn they're also apparently the cradle of prosthetic and cybernetic tech in the City. That a few of you in the thread also pointed out how odd it is that Siegfried, their star Fixer lapdog, runs around with cybernetic arms that can't be trivially healed by a shot of HP Bullets the same way the rest of him can - in fact you may recall that Siegfried made special note of Dante's prosthetic head, like he somehow found that particularly distinctive or noteworthy in the middle of getting the lowdown from Vergilius on who he can and cannot mulch.
We also know that N Corp's Inquisitors made it here into the very Nest of K Corp because they were allowed to, whether in some officially-unofficial capacity or other under-the-table yet mutually-beneficial arrangement. Wings also tend to rise and fall relatively fast in the City. Are we entirely sure that K Corp didn't just kinda hedge its bets on whether flesh or steel would reign supreme in the market, and then just... allow the virulent anti-cyborg racists to have their fun when it turned out the HP Bullets had the higher share price?
They say the purpose of a system is to do what it does, and that goes double in the City. Fascist zealots like the Inquisitors would not exist unless their existence served the wishes of the greater political apparatus of the City, and if there is any one ideology beyond 'money lol' that the City believes in it is the idea of humanity - hence Meursault's unprompted mutterings about N Corp's belief that humanity, human experience and human action are intertwined. What better enemy to make of the idea of 'humanity' than someone who doesn't, or can't, experience what you define as humanity the exact same way as you? And what better way to recruit for a cause like that than by preying on young, uncertain people anxious about their place in the world and what they understand?
It's like I said last update. The City doesn't have regular racism between ethnic groups so they imported some WH40K dudes to invent fifth-dimensional timecube arcanao-racism.
More to the point, we're starting to see a familiar pattern now, aren't we? So, so many moments - two in this canto alone - of a Sinner feeling fragile and vulnerable in the face of the enormity of the past sins they must face, and Dante is overwhelmed by a desire to do something about it, to somehow help ease their pain the same way that they can so trivially reverse physical harm and literal death... but can't. They don't have the words, they don't have the will, they don't have the mentality. They're not strong enough and they tell themself they aren't strong enough in the aftermath so it happens again and again. Yet Vergilius won't let them off the hook. 'The other Sinners are mean to me' won't work forever. They have a job here, they have a role to play, they have to do something. But what? What are they good for if not turning the clock over and over, so the Sinners can just keep on making the same mistakes until they bloodily crawl their way forward a few inches by sheer attrition?
The Sinners advance through Calw, fighting through more packs of Inquisitors in their path. Soon they come across another small group of Inquisitors dealing with a group of cyborgs, methodically driving their nails into each moaning, still-living body as many times as it takes.
The difference between Kleinhammers and Mittelhammers equipment in talksprite form.
Fellow Inquisitor: "It must be patched with steel. Even the core of their humanity has been tainted by heresy. How filthy. A disgrace to flesh and bone."
The Mittelhammer solemnly pours a bottle of pungent oil all over the cyborg, doubtless merely the last victim upon an entire pile of dead and dying they've built in their nights' work.
Fellow Inquisitor: "Imbibe the oil of humanity, ye heretical soma. Those who cannot return to the earth, find solace in scattering to smoke."
A match is thrown upon the pile, turning it to an acrid-smelling pyre of metal and electronics, "not quite like the smell of burning flesh". The fire does its job, snuffing out the spark which their nails could not.
Ishmael: "If this hellscape is their idea of purification, I'd rather stay unclean."
Meursault: "Nagel und Hammer has always been devoted to scrutinising the idea of humanity. Some criticised prosthetic use, as they believed that pain is a necessary component of the human experience. However, it never escalated to the extent of direct action that we are witnessing now."
Gregor: "I've been meaning to ask... how do you know so much about N Corp?"
Remember how I said it'd prove really funny Meursault was chosen for Screwloose Wallop? Of course the guy who used to work with the anti-cyborg racists gets the cyborg EGO.
Gregor: "Wha...? You used to work with these people?"
Meursault: "I have never worked with those specific individuals, but in terms of affiliation, you can say that I did."
Meursault doesn't volunteer information about himself. That's one of the few personality traits we have quite a firm grasp of at this early stage. Which means even Dante can tell that Meursault shouldn't be talking about himself unprompted like this. The man waited until what he could construe as a direct request to explain that Sinclair was having a panic attack about going to K Corp right next to him. So why is he talking about N Corp?
Gregor: "Why didn't you tell us that earlier? You carry one of those freaky weapons then?"
Meursault: "Am I obligated to elaborate?"
Heathcliff: "The hell... Why don't you explain what makes you different from those nutters, then?"
Heathcliff: "Listen, mate... As much as I like to call our daft manager a clockface, I don't think they deserve by any means to be on the stake or chopping block."
Heathcliff: "Those buggers talk big about purifying and all, but all I see are a bunch of loonies who just needed an excuse to kill, eh?"
SCREWLOOSE WALLOP MENTION!?!?! i'm sorry i couldn't resist
Meursault: "There was a time when I thought about such things. Though I did not come to a conclusion."
Heathcliff: "I want that damn conclusion now! Are you gonna up and butcher all the townsfolk if your manager just says so?"
Meursault: "Must I give an answer? That does not aid us in handling our work."
Meursault: "An employee must follow their employer's orders. The terms Vergilius presented state as much."
Meursault: "If the manager orders me to do such a thing, I will do it. I may provide my input if I am told that it is necessary, but I do not have a habit of rambling my thoughts unprompted."
Methinks Meursault doth protest too much here. No one would know he was affiliated with N Corp had he not chosen to speak up multiple times this Canto, with zero pressure from Dante to do so. Now, is he ashamed of his past affiliation with N Corp and thus trying to dodge implications that he would be as loyal and amoral as any of these zealots? I would say... based on some things we'll talk about in the postscript I think Meursault is dodging around what he truly feels about N Corp because he's disappointed in what they have to offer. There but for the grace of god go he, because he found their definition of what constitutes humanity to be lacking. Now, he's just annoyed he's managed to trap himself in a pointless conversation because of an old hyperfixation becoming relevant to the situation.
It is, incidentally, quite sus that his base ID's skill 2 is called Nailing Fist when there are multiple N Corp animations that entail 'hammering' a nail into their foe by fucking punching it.
First and possibly foremost, in an oddly realistic touch their antique plate-and-mail armour affords them resistance to slash damage but vulnerability to blunt. However Outis' Backslash does have a damage conditional for outspeeding her foe that basically cancels out the 25% slash damage reduction, and while these Kleinhammers have a competitive 3-5 speed range their more heavily-armoured brethren will be much slower, and Ryoshu's Brushstroke and Splatter even more easily counter the slash weakness so long as she doesn't go first. Sinclair will be having a little more trouble, but really this whole canto is Struggle Hours for him so that's nothing special. No, the real workhorse IDs here are Ishmael and Faust - both are mono-blunt or near enough, both have blunt base EGO, and the former is fast enough to intercept the most dangerous blows while the latter's next-turn Offence Level Down and next-turn Attack Power Down attached to her skill 2 and skill 3 will be vital considering the at times overwhelming clash power of N Corp.
For the time being though we just have the Kleinhammers to deal with, and a chance to talk about a few things. First is that they're positive and reverse coin hybrids, the three types of Kleinhammer (Servile, Compliant and Worshipping) all sharing the skill Inquisition which is a Lust reverse-coin with a relatively unimpressive max power of 8. But here's the thing - it's a two-coin skill with a coin power of -3. If, for example, a Kleinhammer comes at Ishmael with Inquisition and she clashes with Loggerhead, that's a ceiling of 8 and a floor of 2 contesting a ceiling of 10 and a floor of 3. Now let's say Ishmael wins, so one coin is destroyed and they clash again. Now it's a ceiling of 8 and a floor of 5 contesting a ceiling of 10 and a floor of 3. Even if the Kleinhammer hits heads again, if Ishmael doesn't also hit heads she's now fucked. Reverse-coin skills just get more and more difficult to beat in a clash as they lose more coins, and while this still ultimately causes them to deal less damage on a clash win just the same as positive coin skills, "less damage than you would've taken anyway" is still a much worse result than "cancel enemy attack completely and then fracture their skull". This is the benefit to reverse-coin skills I alluded to way back during the prologue, on top of the existing benefit of being empowered by the otherwise omni-useful Paralyse status, and it's why the mere two reverse-coin IDs playable ingame as of this writing (but really only one of them, the folks at home know which one, don't worry we'll be talking about him extensively) are deceptively difficult to defeat directly.
Next we've got their normal skills. N Corp are heavy on debuffs and Bleed, particularly through the use of their unique debuff Nails. See, the problem with Bleed is that a target with Bleed is gonna burn through their Bleed Count extremely quickly during pitched battles, especially if they get to make unopposed multi-coin attacks or have multiple action slots. Nails obviate this problem through their staying power - a target suffering Nails gains Bleed Count at turn end equal to Nails, and then the Nails count is merely halved (rounded down, so 1 Nail will vanish) and sticks around for further stacking. This means that losing clashes can steadily snowball into a serious problem for you even if the direct damage itself is not really a problem (through pierce/sin resistance). Servile Kleinhammers exclusively inflict Bleed and Nails, Worshipping ones inflict Nails and Bind, and finally Compliant ones inflict a highly troublesome combo of Paralyse, Defence Power Down and Bind. To make matters worse the Joy of Execution buff shared by all N Corp zealots gives them 2 Damage Up the turn after they successfully kill an enemy, so if a Sinner drops you may be in for a death spiral.
The new clash animations are still a lot of fun to watch, especially when this particular kind (a block/guard sprite opposes a block/guard sprite so it becomes a spark-grinding weapon lock until the winner dramatically breaks free and sends the loser sliding back) manages to sync up just right. Sinclair's base ID is heavily focused around pursuing and winning clashes, so it's a particular glowup for him.
After the battle, Vergilius greets the Sinners as they return to the bus and asks if the Inquisitors were trickier than their usual foes, the rat bitch. Once again Rodion needles him about helping, and once again Vergilius rebuffs her saying that there'd be no point to any of it if he shitstomped everything in their path for them. Ishmael, doubtless sensing a lost cause when she sees it, instead wonders aloud what caused the N Corp goons to label them heretics in the first place. Dante, having been paying attention, reminds her that the guy pretty explicitly pointed to Mx Clockhead as the heretical element in need of purging.
Meursault mutters to himself, unprompted.
Dante: <Experience?>
Meursault: "Humans are made to have experiences and actions appropriate of their worth... That is what they say of it."
Sinclair is barely holding it together, and though Rodion shoots him a look of pity she knows there's not much she can do about it any more. Charon, unaffected, draws Vergilius' attention to the radio buzzing. Effie's voice just barely comes through, the barest hint of something about Saude being lost in static - Gregor takes charge for once, implicitly snatching the handset straight out of Vergilius' hand to hail Effie for a sitrep.
But it is no longer him on the other side.
Gregor: "Effie?"
Ishmael: "Was that... Effie's voice? Or something else?"
Ishmael: "No, actually... Was that even a human voice at all?"
And then, faintly, there's something else. Not words, but a shrill whistle. A whistle that plunges Sinclair even deeper into the depths of his spiral.
Dante: <Calm down, Sinclair. What do you mean by whistles, and who is this 'wretched' woman?>
Sinclair: "She's waiting for me. That was a message calling for me!"
Narration: Resentful tears were streaming from Sinclair's face as he rambled.
Ishmael catches sight of another pack of N Corp Inquisitors down the road, and Sinclair's courage falters entirely.
Sinclair: "Can't we... just head back? I don't wanna go - let's just turn around. Just tip the steering wheel and..."
Rodion: "Kiddo... what's wrong? What're you so worried you'll walk into?"
Sinclair: "We shouldn't go. We'll all die - we need to go back."
Yet, mercifully, it's Outis who acts first to silence Sinclair's wails.
Outis: "I delivered a light blow to the stomach to knock him unconscious for a short while, nothing more."
Vergilius: "We're in agreement for once, it seems. I was this close to stepping in."
Outis: "I don't need cowards on my battlefield. Can't I throw him out of the bus?"
Dante: <That... might be a bit too far.>
Outis: "... if you say so, Manager."
Outis shoots Sinclair a look of displeasure where he lies. Dante can only wonder at what caused Sinclair to oppose something so strongly, to the point of overwhelming his usually timid and nonconfrontational nature. But they pull back from that curiosity, that desire to know and understand more - or rather, lack the will to pursue it - and by the time Sinclair awakens from Outis' knockout blow the next battle has already begun. Sinclair stares vacantly out the window.
Dante: <... The others are all out fighting.>
Sinclair: "I'm... sorry. I'll go join them."
Two more battles with N Corp Kleinhammers ensue, the bus forging its way further and further through the woods towards Calw, but our next twist in the story comes with the bus' arrival in town proper in chapter 3-13 - Silent Night.
Ishmael: "Ugh... what a mess this is, huh."
Ishmael: "By the way... Don't you hear a familiar song from somewhere?"
Heathcliff: "Oh, yeah, I know this one. Used to hear this tune an awful lot on snowy days..."
Gregor: "They played it a bunch during wartime to raise our spirits. Did the exact opposite for me."
Silent Night is playing over the town loudspeakers, broadcast to every corner of the burning nightmare. The song choice is so strange, yet so resonant, that the Sinners stop to consider what memories it stirs within them - even Dante.
Narration: It's definitely familiar, but it doesn't bring up any clear images in my head. However, I could still feel a faint splash of feeling from deep in my heart.
Narration: Maybe I knew this song before I lost my memory. The mist of emotion roused inside me, though... it doesn't feel precious or warm.
Narration: An ache.
Narration: An inexplicable sting is what I felt.
Sinclair: "It was snowy like this... and that song was playing..."
Narration: All sorts of internal organs and mechanical parts were hung from the branches, as if someone put peoples' innards on full display.
Rodion: "Bleck... Isn't this going too far?"
Ryoshu: "A classic... but, more kitschy than anything."
Meursault: "... there are no survivors nearby."
Dante finally realises what all this horror, gore and pageantry adds up to. It's beginning to look a lot like-
???: "Enjoying your Noel, everyone? The night isn't really silent, but it sure is holy."
Dante: <Isn't Christmas still a fair way off?>
Ishmael: "You're right, it's not any time soon."
Kromer: "I don't know how you managed to get here, but you're trespassing on private property. As you can see... this hallowed ground is undergoing our nailing judgement. I hope you like the decorations I set up."
Kromer: "Well, let's just say that you got lost... Turn back now and a fine will be all you have to pay. I'm feeling generous... Today is the Nativity after all!"
Kromer: "Oh, before that. Is Guido there?"
Kromer: "Good. Just in case, do you see any heretics over there?"
The massive N Corp enforcer turns to stare at the Sinners, and his eyes invariably alight on Dante. The pressure of his gaze is such that the Sinners are "froze[n] completely still, as if his glare nailed [them] to the ground", but what's important about Guido's response isn't the obvious.
Guido: "I see an impure one and their followers."
Guido: "And with them... the child you spoke of."
And at this, Kromer's tone changes entirely.
Kromer: "Hahaha! Really! My Sinclair is back? Come see me, Sinclair. I'll be waiting at that familiar spot!"
Sinclair: "Gr... hrrrkkh... Kro... mer..."
Narration: I can hear Sinclair grinding and gnashing his teeth. He made a dreadful noise; I couldn't be sure if it was from hatred or fear.
Kromer: "Take out the rest, Guido. Or should I myself? I wouldn't mjind."
Guido: "I urge you to focus on hammering the impure, O One Who Grips."
Kromer: "Hahahahaha! Good, good! Let's keep up the purification! Now then, everyone. Merry Christmas!"
More of N Corp's inquisitors gather to stand with Guido, and the Sinners are in for another gruelling battle.
Another boss-type stage, with two waves of ordinary enemies for the Sinners to warm up and gain SP/sin resources with before the main event. The first wave is just more Kleinhammers, but the second mixes in some Mittelhammers for the first time - you'll see them in a second, but they're basically just Kleinhammers but with slightly different helmets, more armour, and more purity seals. These come in Scourging and Interrogative variants, sharing certain traits: Counters that inflict Nails (all but guaranteeing a certain amount of incoming Nails), the three-coin reverse-coin skill Assertive Inquisition that inflicts a colossal 10 Bind to the target if they're unfortunate enough to have 5 Nails when hit, Aggressive/Oppressive Preaching which inflict 2 Fragile/2 Attack Power Down next turn on hit respectively, or reflect said debuffs to the attacker on clash lose, and finally the rather deadly passive Noble Be Thy Sacrifice. This gives the Mittelhammer 1 Attack Power Up next turn if an ally is slain, and it stacks, which can spiral out of control and effectively give the lucky Mittelhammer a God Turn if you kill too many of his allies at once. Besides that, Scourging Inquisitors have a rough as hell bread and butter attack called Rough Nailing which boasts a considerable 3+3x3 direct power on top of inflicting 3 Bleed Potency and 3 Nails next turn on hit, while Interrogative Inquisitors just inflict a bunch of Bind and Paralyse.
Upside: did you know that Sinclair's s3 fucking launches his target a good 12ft in the air on the second coin so he can launch them across the screen with the third? The boy is The Fucking Strong. He can just Do That, no augments no nothing, just pure German fury and hormones. What kind of hormones? Don't worry about it-
Wave 3 brings the third and final variant of N Corp Inquisitors. Frustratingly these are I guess also Mittelhammers despite having totally different equipment, because Grosshammer is reserved for Guido even though he clearly holds his own unique position as Kromer's second in command. So frankly I'll make a command decision and call these heavy-armoured lads Grosshammers.
Anyhoo the Grosshammers come in two variants, Obsessive and Joyous, and continue the linear progression of N Corp zealots being increasingly well-trained to fuck your mouth. Not only do they have the same Noble Be Thy Sacrifice passive the Mittelhammers are packing, they have the skills Congregate and Unite respectively; the former applies 1 Fanatic to 2 random allies next turn, while the latter boosts the SP of 2 allies by 15 points next turn. The utility of the latter is obvious, but how about the former? Well, Fanatic is a special buff designed for N Corp synergy, where the beneficiary gains Base Power equal to their Fanatic count when attacking a target with any amount of Nails in them. Yes, this can stack, and it doesn't require any particular threshold of Nails. This is a nightmare if too many Inquisitors get Fanatic all at once because it's effectively impossible to prevent any Nails from landing in your team, through sheer action economy if not Counters or plain bad luck. Joyous ones can also, what else, inflict a bunch of next-turn Bind and Attack Power Down in order to cripple your clashing for the next round of hammering and nailing. Then, as if that weren't bad enough, both share the skill Ponderous Inquisition. If the target of Ponderous Inquisition is unlucky enough to have at least 5 Nails (or only 3, because the first coin inflicts 2 on heads hit) then they take a crippling 10 Attack Power Down and Paralyse for next turn, basically rendering them helpless before whatever the enemy sends their way next. So don't get fucking hit by it.
And then we have Guido. He boasts a colossal health pool for the point in the story we encounter him, all the aforementioned problematic N Corp faction passives, as well as Hammer Of The One Who Grips which passively heals 10 SP for all allies on the field every turn - including himself, including the very turn in which you first reach him. If you don't already have maxed SP or a similarly overwhelming SP advantage, this is going to be a real problem. Oh and he generally deals another 50% damage if he has Fanatic, just to add insult to injury. He and everyone fielded with him comes with potentially easy access to Fanatic through his Hammers, Heed Me..! skill, which applies teamwide Fanatic on top of 10 SP for the two allies with the least SP (again, including him). His Spike Drive skill rolls a kind of pitiful 5-8 but if allowed to slip through the cracks somehow it inflicts a horrid 4 next-turn Nails, setting the unfortunate target up for all the worst 5+ Nails conditionals including his own - You Are Cleansed Of Sin, which will simply instantly stagger the target at 5 Nails.
Fortunately he's weak to blunt and Ishmael decided he had too many functional ribs. As he only fields two Inquisitors for backup his kit can't quite yield the worst of its evil quickly enough to save him, and with the massive advantage in SP and action slots the Sinners yielded in the first two waves they swiftly overwhelm the Grosshammers and beat Guido to death with hammers - he does, however, escape offscreen rather than exploding, hinting that we have yet to see the last of him.
The Sinners are feeling about as much fatigue in fighting all these fucking racists as most launch-day players were as the level gap grew larger and larger with no end in sight. Outis is disgusted that Ishmael would call for a retreat with the enemy still in sight, which Ishmael answers with a trademark flippant dismissal, but with Dante siding with her Outis has no leg to stand on and quietly acquiesces to the withdrawal order. Dante uses the time to instead turn to Sinclair.
Dante: <Sinclair, do you know what that Kromer meant by 'that familiar spot'?>
Sinclair: "That's... well..."
Narration: Sinclair shook. He was seemingly overwhelmed with dread. But I could also see a teeth-grinding anger in him that surpassed his fear.
Narration: Looking at him, a thought blossomed in my mind.
Dante: <You need to talk, Sinclair. Tell us what you know, and you'll prevent half the deaths we might suffer."
Outis mentions the greater chances of success, but Dante isn't even paying attention to her. They're only fretting over whether they're doing the right thing as the manager, watching and waiting for the moment where Sinclair at last takes a deep breath and answers.
Sinclair: "... my house. That's where Kromer must be."
Heathcliff: "So, you know that bird? Bollocks, my head is still pounding from her shrill laugh."
Sinclair: "... I met her at school."
Rodion: "Oh boy, she's a friend of yours? Whatever's going on, sure hope you can talk it out..."
Rodion: "..."
Rodion: "My bad."
Not much else you can say after something like that, is there?
Narration: A prosthetic head hanging from a tree slowly turned to face us. Lights and sparks occasionally flickered within.
A Prosthetic Head: "Why... did you... return..."
Rodion: "... Sinclair, are those your neighbours?"
Sinclair: "It looks like they were... I really hope that isn't the case, though..."
Rodion and Sinclair watch grimly as the bare wires of the ruined prosthetic spark and short-circuit, the severed head's movements ceasing in a surge of discordant electronic noise. But then...
A Prosthetic Head: "Silent night..."
A Prosthetic Head: "Holy night..."
Every head hanging from the tree or burning in the fire beneath is singing the same song.
Ishmael: "It's clearer than ever now... Prosthetic body parts are 'heresy' to them."
Faust: "Though it has been quite a while since prostheses were first introduced to the City... many people still find them foreign and alienating."
Sinclair: "... our town."
Sinclair: "Our town was called... 'the Holy Site of Nest K's Prosthetic Industry'. Most of the residents worked in manufacturing high-end prosthesis components."
Sinclair: "Kromer has been keeping an eye on our town for a long time."
Gregor: "So, was your family..."
Sinclair: "Yeah, my father was the owner of a fledgeling prosthetics company too. ."
Ishmael: "No."
Ishmael: "The way I see it, attributing it to a high-flown cause of any kind is giving them too much credit."
Ishmael: "They're... just lunatics, consumed by madness and violence."
And Ishmael would know a thing or two about delusional madmen driven by high-minded justifications for their obsessions and pride, wouldn't she?
Sinclair spents a time looking at the grotesque 'Christmas' parody in silence. Then, at last, he turns to Dante.
Sinclair: "Manager, I have a question if it's alright with you."
Dante: <What is it?>
Sinclair: "Well... how does it feel?"
Dante: <Feel?>
Sinclair: "Yeah."
For a moment the music cuts out, leaving Sinclair's unnervingly flat and almost combative tone wholly unvarnished. The question leaves Dante taken aback, both because no one has ever asked them that before, and because without their memories they have no point of comparison.
Sinclair: "Oh! It's- um... I'm not trying to argue with you or anything."
Sinclair: "... T-that was probably rude of me. I apologise."
Dante: <No need, it's alright.>
Fuck, Dante, you gotta fish up a skerrick of self-esteem one of these days.
Dante: <I'm afraid I can't answer that... I don't remember a single thing about my life before this clock.>
Sinclair: "I see..."
Sinclair: "My family said it's no different from wearing a hat or a watch..."
Sinclair: "But I just couldn't picture it well no matter how I approached it."
Sinclair: "And now, I'm the only survivor thanks to that."
Dante: <I'm sure the procedure seemed terrifying at such a young age. You don't have to feel guilty about that.>
Sinclair: "That's not it..."
Sinclair: "I'm afraid I'm not as innocent as you might think, Dante..."
Sinclair hangs his head. Dante tries to think of something to say, anything, and comes up short. Only silence, sparks, and the roar of flames remains to comfort Sinclair.
Somehow, against all odds, the boy managed to roll the most traumatising canto so far. Gregor and Rodion had to face past failures but Sinclair has that and a combo platter with a clear and present threat in the form of plate-armoured racists cavorting around the German countryside burning and staking (or rather, nailing) everyone they find for the crime of being a cyborg or associating with cyborgs. In a city where cybernetic procedures are entirely commonplace, not to mention! But it's interesting too, isn't it? That we spent the first chunk of this canto being given a front-row seat to just how powerful K Corp's singularity is at the regeneration and preservation of the flesh, only to learn they're also apparently the cradle of prosthetic and cybernetic tech in the City. That a few of you in the thread also pointed out how odd it is that Siegfried, their star Fixer lapdog, runs around with cybernetic arms that can't be trivially healed by a shot of HP Bullets the same way the rest of him can - in fact you may recall that Siegfried made special note of Dante's prosthetic head, like he somehow found that particularly distinctive or noteworthy in the middle of getting the lowdown from Vergilius on who he can and cannot mulch.
We also know that N Corp's Inquisitors made it here into the very Nest of K Corp because they were allowed to, whether in some officially-unofficial capacity or other under-the-table yet mutually-beneficial arrangement. Wings also tend to rise and fall relatively fast in the City. Are we entirely sure that K Corp didn't just kinda hedge its bets on whether flesh or steel would reign supreme in the market, and then just... allow the virulent anti-cyborg racists to have their fun when it turned out the HP Bullets had the higher share price?
They say the purpose of a system is to do what it does, and that goes double in the City. Fascist zealots like the Inquisitors would not exist unless their existence served the wishes of the greater political apparatus of the City, and if there is any one ideology beyond 'money lol' that the City believes in it is the idea of humanity - hence Meursault's unprompted mutterings about N Corp's belief that humanity, human experience and human action are intertwined. What better enemy to make of the idea of 'humanity' than someone who doesn't, or can't, experience what you define as humanity the exact same way as you? And what better way to recruit for a cause like that than by preying on young, uncertain people anxious about their place in the world and what they understand?
It's like I said last update. The City doesn't have regular racism between ethnic groups so they imported some WH40K dudes to invent fifth-dimensional timecube arcanao-racism.
More to the point, we're starting to see a familiar pattern now, aren't we? So, so many moments - two in this canto alone - of a Sinner feeling fragile and vulnerable in the face of the enormity of the past sins they must face, and Dante is overwhelmed by a desire to do something about it, to somehow help ease their pain the same way that they can so trivially reverse physical harm and literal death... but can't. They don't have the words, they don't have the will, they don't have the mentality. They're not strong enough and they tell themself they aren't strong enough in the aftermath so it happens again and again. Yet Vergilius won't let them off the hook. 'The other Sinners are mean to me' won't work forever. They have a job here, they have a role to play, they have to do something. But what? What are they good for if not turning the clock over and over, so the Sinners can just keep on making the same mistakes until they bloodily crawl their way forward a few inches by sheer attrition?
The Sinners advance through Calw, fighting through more packs of Inquisitors in their path. Soon they come across another small group of Inquisitors dealing with a group of cyborgs, methodically driving their nails into each moaning, still-living body as many times as it takes.
The difference between Kleinhammers and Mittelhammers equipment in talksprite form.
Fellow Inquisitor: "It must be patched with steel. Even the core of their humanity has been tainted by heresy. How filthy. A disgrace to flesh and bone."
The Mittelhammer solemnly pours a bottle of pungent oil all over the cyborg, doubtless merely the last victim upon an entire pile of dead and dying they've built in their nights' work.
Fellow Inquisitor: "Imbibe the oil of humanity, ye heretical soma. Those who cannot return to the earth, find solace in scattering to smoke."
A match is thrown upon the pile, turning it to an acrid-smelling pyre of metal and electronics, "not quite like the smell of burning flesh". The fire does its job, snuffing out the spark which their nails could not.
Ishmael: "If this hellscape is their idea of purification, I'd rather stay unclean."
Meursault: "Nagel und Hammer has always been devoted to scrutinising the idea of humanity. Some criticised prosthetic use, as they believed that pain is a necessary component of the human experience. However, it never escalated to the extent of direct action that we are witnessing now."
Gregor: "I've been meaning to ask... how do you know so much about N Corp?"
Remember how I said it'd prove really funny Meursault was chosen for Screwloose Wallop? Of course the guy who used to work with the anti-cyborg racists gets the cyborg EGO.
Gregor: "Wha...? You used to work with these people?"
Meursault: "I have never worked with those specific individuals, but in terms of affiliation, you can say that I did."
Meursault doesn't volunteer information about himself. That's one of the few personality traits we have quite a firm grasp of at this early stage. Which means even Dante can tell that Meursault shouldn't be talking about himself unprompted like this. The man waited until what he could construe as a direct request to explain that Sinclair was having a panic attack about going to K Corp right next to him. So why is he talking about N Corp?
Gregor: "Why didn't you tell us that earlier? You carry one of those freaky weapons then?"
Meursault: "Am I obligated to elaborate?"
Heathcliff: "The hell... Why don't you explain what makes you different from those nutters, then?"
Heathcliff: "Listen, mate... As much as I like to call our daft manager a clockface, I don't think they deserve by any means to be on the stake or chopping block."
Heathcliff: "Those buggers talk big about purifying and all, but all I see are a bunch of loonies who just needed an excuse to kill, eh?"
SCREWLOOSE WALLOP MENTION!?!?! i'm sorry i couldn't resist
Meursault: "There was a time when I thought about such things. Though I did not come to a conclusion."
Heathcliff: "I want that damn conclusion now! Are you gonna up and butcher all the townsfolk if your manager just says so?"
Meursault: "Must I give an answer? That does not aid us in handling our work."
Meursault: "An employee must follow their employer's orders. The terms Vergilius presented state as much."
Meursault: "If the manager orders me to do such a thing, I will do it. I may provide my input if I am told that it is necessary, but I do not have a habit of rambling my thoughts unprompted."
Methinks Meursault doth protest too much here. No one would know he was affiliated with N Corp had he not chosen to speak up multiple times this Canto, with zero pressure from Dante to do so. Now, is he ashamed of his past affiliation with N Corp and thus trying to dodge implications that he would be as loyal and amoral as any of these zealots? I would say... based on some things we'll talk about in the postscript I think Meursault is dodging around what he truly feels about N Corp because he's disappointed in what they have to offer. There but for the grace of god go he, because he found their definition of what constitutes humanity to be lacking. Now, he's just annoyed he's managed to trap himself in a pointless conversation because of an old hyperfixation becoming relevant to the situation.
It is, incidentally, quite sus that his base ID's skill 2 is called Nailing Fist when there are multiple N Corp animations that entail 'hammering' a nail into their foe by fucking punching it.
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ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
Heathcliff: "... Pardon? Are you 'round the twist? Do you got a chunk of metal for your brains like the folks here?"
I couldn't resist, IAmClearlyDifferentInTermsOfComposition.jpg is an immortal screenshot from the early days of Memesault.
Meursault: "Moreover, unnecessary heavy metals do not compromise any portion of my body."
Meursault: "That is another difference."
Narration: Heathcliff's face contorted with frustration.
Yeah no kidding, really Heathcliff should be commended for his restraint given his coworker's suspicious evasiveness regarding the question "are you a weird LARPing nazi". Fortunately, Hong Lu chimes in with a surprisingly salient point.
No I know what you're thinking but let him cook.
Outis: "What do you mean?"
Hong Lu: "What if... when dear Dante is speaking... it's actually the clock and not the person we know as 'Dante' behind those words?"
Heathcliff: "Eh? You trying to tell me we were being led by an actual clock?"
YareYareDaze.jpg
Hong Lu: "Don't misunderstand, I do like our Dante with their clock-headedness."
Rodion: "Honestly, same. Why don't you just give up finding your old head and stick with that one?"
Rodion: "I know it's prob not gonna be the case, but what if Dante's real head turned out to be super evil or something?"
See, this is why you shouldn't be precious about having characters speculate about possible answers to some big mystery you've set up, especially if they verge close to the truth. Because multiple people are frank about the possibility that Dante's true identity is just a fucking asshole and the Dante we know is a more moral person (basically the first thing most would speculate out of universe) it gives us meaningful moments like Dante immediately disavowing the idea of a self that doesn't care as much about suffering as they do now, or Hong Lu and Rodion expressing unprompted fondness for Dante for the first time in the process of that speculation.
Naturally, Gregor goes to the source and just asks Faust what she knows on the subject, to a predictable stonewall treatment about security clearance. Dante glumly notes that even they won't be able to read the relevant info, because they're pretty used to having zero privileges in their 'executive management 'role.
Narration: It's only natural. I have no idea who or what I originally was, so I had nothing at my disposal to refute Hong Lu's lighthearted accusation.
Narration: Maybe he's right, and I really am just a clock.
Narration: Even if I ask Faust, there's no telling if she'll give me a real answer, and I wouldn't be able to discern the truth in such a thing either.
Narration: There's even a slim chance that the real 'Dante' is hidden away somewhere, and that I'm some advanced imitation trained to believe I have free will.
And here we see more hints of Dante's mentality, and some more of the underlying sense of... depersonalisation, maybe, that drives a lot of their loser behaviour and ineptitude as a manager. Dante is a person without a past, someone 'free' of the same sins and regrets that chain down the Sinners - you'd almost call them tabula rasa but the slate isn't quite blank, is it? Not with how Faust and Vergilius were able to apply pressure in the initial stages of recruitment via well-timed mentions of 'engraving the aspect'. But they are a person who fundamentally lacks so much of what might otherwise give them the grounding and motivation to really be proactive in all this shit that just happens to them. A lot of how they're treated, and especially now with experiencing full-blast firehose racism from N Corp after getting frog-boiled by microaggressions from the Sinners, has served to instill in them a sense of learned helplessness. They have a lot of upsetting thoughts that they have no idea how to act on, and have been swiftly ground down into a mentality of "welp let's go throw ourselves into the suffering".
Case in point, they switch gears from this to making a crack about mounting the clockhead on the wall after they find their real head, eliciting an aghast look from Ishmael. Because like, bruh what do you even say to that.
Over at the next map node, Sinclair approaches Dante with a preemptive apology.
Sinclair: "Our foes might jab me in the heart over and over for that..."
Sinclair: "Will you... bear that for me?"
Narration: Sinclair was trembling so badly that it'd be pitiful for anyone to witness. I could tell he was desperately trying to suppress his fear.
Narration: It wouldn't be the first time Sinclair has died. Whenever he bit the dust, I made sure to bring him back.
Narration: But today, he's newly asking for my understanding. He looked determined to confront them directly even if it means he'll die again and again.
Narration: A feeling quite unlike the fright a usual battle evokes...
Narration: Maybe he's holding the kind of fear that comes with a certain courage. In that case...
Dante: <Are you scared, Sinclair?>
Dante: <Hmm? Did I say something weird?>
Sinclair: "No, it's just... I was reminded of a friend who asked me the same question."
There's a pause.
Sinclair: "... I agree with what Heathcliff said. Prosthetic head or not, you would've been the same person regardless, Dante. I guess the same could be said for my family."
Dante: <Thanks, Sinclair.>
And with that Sinclair charges into the fray, just as Dante realises they forgot to ask what his response had been when his friend asked that same question. But I'm sure this mystery friend will be of no consequence to the rest of the Canto.
Unfortunately, no better moment arrives to ask. With this next advance through town, they make it to the Sinclair estate. Or... what's left of it.
Narration: I took a moment to try and imagine what this town could have looked like during its peaceful times. To bring to mind the times when the trees we saw near the town still had lush, verdant leaves. How Sinclair would've been during those times. Or when everyone around him had died. I couldn't paint a clear picture of either happiness or despair.
Narration: Nonetheless, I only hope that Sinclair can brace himself for the misfortune he'll soon have to face.
The courtyard is a bristling forest of bodies, townsfolk of all shapes and sizes impaled upon the colossal nails. The mansion is enveloped in roaring flames, casting hellish orange light upon the snowcapped night, but where the other Sinners are concerned with the thicket of impaled dead Sinclair's gaze focuses immediately upon a certain corner of the yard.
Narration: Sinclair's expression alone was enough for meand all the other Sinners to guess who they were for.
Yi Sang: "... to execute the dead - this is nothing short of a devil's work."
Narration: Father, mother, and sister. The family he mentioned... that's where they should be resting.
Sinclair: "That whistling..."
???: "Kehehe. I mean, it's just too funny when you think about it."
Sinclair: "Kromer..."
Kromer: "I'm sure you'll find 'em around somewhere if you look hard enough. I do remember nailing those three."
Kromer: "Be a good boy, and I might just tell you where they are..."
Kromer: "Well, Sinclair? You've grown a spine, coming all the way here. Enough of one to look at a few dead bodies too, right?"
Sinclair: "Why... Just... Why all this...?"
Words begin to fail Sinclair as his emotions overwhelm him. Outis takes the opportunity to ask after the whereabouts of the Before Team, knowing that by rights they should've seen some sign of them already.
Kromer: "Ah~ Sinclair's got some buddies!"
Kromer: "Okay, okay. Watch closely. I'll turn on the lights, so open your eyes wide!"
It's a testament to how fucked this scene is that I only question the inexplicable dramatic spotlight reveal now as I transcribe this and not in the moment.
Gregor: "Effie...?"
Effie is barely breathing, unable to speak without coughing up blood. His right arm and both of his legs have been severed, prosthetics harvested from the dead of Calw cruelly stuffed in the bleeding stumps.
Faust: "..."
Faust: "In his current state, it will take around two days for him to completely die. And the pole piercing through him will only amplify his suffering."
Dante: <Then...>
Outis: "Manager, I happen to know of a method to end a life with as little pain as possible."
Outis: "May I ask you to give me the order?"
Dante looks to Ishmael and Gregor, doubtless hoping that they can offer any reasonable alternative. They meet Dante's gaze, only to turn away.
Dante hears only the slightest rustle of Outis' clothes in the wind, and then silence. Effie is at peace.
Only for Kromer to roar with laughter.
Narration: At the same time, I could hear something else break.
Kromer: "Really, it's hilarious to watch you all care for each other when you'll all meet the same fate anyway!"
Kromer: "Brings you back, doesn't it, Sinclair? Your face back then was real priceless."
Sinclair: "Kromer."
Sinclair: "Yeah, I think that's the right way."
Sinclair: "You'll die by my-!"
Sinclair's declaration is interrupted by the sound of a nail being dragged across stone.
Guido, unmarked by his previous bout with the Sinners, trudges into the flame-lit courtyard of the Sinclar estate.
Kromer: "Guido, why couldn't you take out the others?"
Guido: "Forgive my ineptitude, O One Who Grips. My incompetence allowed them to escape."
Kromer: "You have to stay alert. You never know what's hidden under those cursed steel craniums."
Guido: "I shall keep your word at heart, O One Who Grips."
Kromer: "Since the reunion is over, I'll be heading back."
And with that, Kromer makes to return to the flames.
Sinclair: "Kromer!!!"
Kromer: "Nope, Sinclair."
Narration: A long smirk dances across Kromer's face; it's hard to tell if it's the violent blaze or Kromer's vice that is consuming the other.
Guys there had to be a better way to phrase this, she sounds like she's making a Breaking Bad joke in the middle of an emotionally heightened scene.
Battle is joined for the first of the two most difficult map nodes of the Canto - a gruelling three-wave gauntlet of increasingly high-ranked N Corp Inquisitors before the flames of Sinclair's home nearly at the release-day level cap, with one more twist of the knife for good measure.
Kromer is still observing the battle from offscreen, and every three turns she will whistle. This gives every N Corp Inquisitor on the field the status Kromer's Whistles, which is really just a dummy buff to explain the presence of the other buffs; 1 Attack Power Up, 1 Defence Power Up, and 2 Fanatic. Since Fanatic applies to both offensive and defensive skills so long as the primary target of each has Nails, this is effectively a whopping 3 base power boost to absolutely everything these guys are packing if the team are unfortunate enough to have a nail or two floating around. Even worse, Sinclair's adverse reaction to Kromer's whistling is not relegated to the realm of cutscenes - if he is fielded for these two battles, Kromer's Whistles will also drain a colossal 30 SP from him each time it triggers. Trust me, it's a stroke of incredible fortune that it first triggered under the circumstances shown in the screenshot, with 3/4ths of the opposition Staggered and unable to make use of the buff, otherwise Ishmael and Faust would be fucked. Even so it's fortunate that this lot are all max level, and that the SP scaling bug is now fixed compared to launch, or else this would've been nowhere near as smooth as it was - sin resonance comes in real handy with both Ishmael and Sinclair having plenty of Wrath to go around, as if they end up adjacent to each other in the skill deck for some Wrath Absolute Resonance it gives Sinclair a fighting chance at winning clashes with his s2 even in spite of the mental damage Kromer's presence causes.
Another upside to this team, and part of why I constructed it as I did, is that their damage affinities have decent coverage vs N Corp Inquisitors - their sin affinities are strictly Pride, Lust and Wrath, and physical typing either Pierce or Blunt. Faust resists Pride and Pierce, Ryoshu resists Lust, Ishmael resists Blunt, and Outis resists Pride. Sinclair is the odd man out for having no particularly relevant resistances, but we'll cut him some slack given the circumstances.
In the aftermath of the battle Sinclair lets out a roar of fury and charges headlong into the fray, rushing Kromer heedless of the remaining Inquisitors still in his way.
Heathcliff: "Hey, wait...!"
Narration: In response, he swings his weapon with a tremendous force I never thought he could exert, crushing the head of the one who grabbed him.
Narration: The Inquisitor collapses to the ground before even a gasp could escape their mouth.
Narration: Sinclair would normally keep to the back of our group; this was the first time I saw him charge in unprompted like that.
Bro is simply impressed by the boy's gumption, and possibly reassessing him as a bullying target.
Guido: "I remember with clarity that I had ended your lives. I undoubtedly witnessed torn brain tissue spill through the cracks in your skulls. And yet, here you heretics are, before me on your feet."
We'll put a pin in this for the postscript, it's very funny.
Guido fixes Dante with his piercing glare, and nods in understanding.
Guido: "You there, the one possessing the head of a heretic. You must be the false shepherd enticing this herd into blasphemy."
He inclines his head to the corpses impaled upon nails all around the courtyard - doubtless those of the missing LCCB operatives, to be more specific.
Guido: "They committed the grave sin of entering the site of hallowed rites with their unclean bodies. Thus, they have been punished with the same penalty as heretics receive. They have also been subjected to the humiliation of bodily mechanical intrusions being installed against their will."
Guido: "But you are different. The sin of worshipping a heretic is less severe than indulging in heresy oneself. Therefore, as long as you are willing to repent and cleanse your minds of sin... we, the Hammer, are willing to demonstrate forgiveness."
Guido: "So I implore you, ye pitiable foolish sinners, led astray by temptation. Shake off the allure of that false miracle, and kneel before me."
Dante, doubtless finding the idea of being 'worshipped' like some false idol by the Sinners simply too fucking funny to take seriously after the month they've had, cracks a joke in response.
Ishmael: "Dante... that man... he just insulted you. He doesn't see you as a human being."
Dante: <I mean, you guys call me clockface all the time too...>
Sis is RUSHING to beat the allegations.
Heathcliff: "So you think throwing some fancy words around will be enough to persuade us, eh..."
Heathcliff: "Listen up, Faceplate: You're the one who needs a little shaking off. Seems to me your human brain's just as defective."
I like to think that Heathcliff managed to genuinely upset the weird 7ft tall catholic nazi and bro is now purely flabbergasted trying to think of a followup that doesn't make him seem owned.
Guido: "You were given ample opportunity. You are no different from those we hung and nailed after all."
Guido: "I am a Hammer. I am a tool for the One Who Grips, tasked with the great mission of piercing the false flesh of heretics."
Guido: "I shall bind thee to a nail, and lay thee down furthest from the soil. For he who shan't repent-"
Guido: "... is not granted rest beneath the earth."
I couldn't resist, IAmClearlyDifferentInTermsOfComposition.jpg is an immortal screenshot from the early days of Memesault.
Meursault: "Moreover, unnecessary heavy metals do not compromise any portion of my body."
Meursault: "That is another difference."
Narration: Heathcliff's face contorted with frustration.
Yeah no kidding, really Heathcliff should be commended for his restraint given his coworker's suspicious evasiveness regarding the question "are you a weird LARPing nazi". Fortunately, Hong Lu chimes in with a surprisingly salient point.
No I know what you're thinking but let him cook.
Outis: "What do you mean?"
Hong Lu: "What if... when dear Dante is speaking... it's actually the clock and not the person we know as 'Dante' behind those words?"
Heathcliff: "Eh? You trying to tell me we were being led by an actual clock?"
YareYareDaze.jpg
Hong Lu: "Don't misunderstand, I do like our Dante with their clock-headedness."
Rodion: "Honestly, same. Why don't you just give up finding your old head and stick with that one?"
Rodion: "I know it's prob not gonna be the case, but what if Dante's real head turned out to be super evil or something?"
See, this is why you shouldn't be precious about having characters speculate about possible answers to some big mystery you've set up, especially if they verge close to the truth. Because multiple people are frank about the possibility that Dante's true identity is just a fucking asshole and the Dante we know is a more moral person (basically the first thing most would speculate out of universe) it gives us meaningful moments like Dante immediately disavowing the idea of a self that doesn't care as much about suffering as they do now, or Hong Lu and Rodion expressing unprompted fondness for Dante for the first time in the process of that speculation.
Naturally, Gregor goes to the source and just asks Faust what she knows on the subject, to a predictable stonewall treatment about security clearance. Dante glumly notes that even they won't be able to read the relevant info, because they're pretty used to having zero privileges in their 'executive management 'role.
Narration: It's only natural. I have no idea who or what I originally was, so I had nothing at my disposal to refute Hong Lu's lighthearted accusation.
Narration: Maybe he's right, and I really am just a clock.
Narration: Even if I ask Faust, there's no telling if she'll give me a real answer, and I wouldn't be able to discern the truth in such a thing either.
Narration: There's even a slim chance that the real 'Dante' is hidden away somewhere, and that I'm some advanced imitation trained to believe I have free will.
And here we see more hints of Dante's mentality, and some more of the underlying sense of... depersonalisation, maybe, that drives a lot of their loser behaviour and ineptitude as a manager. Dante is a person without a past, someone 'free' of the same sins and regrets that chain down the Sinners - you'd almost call them tabula rasa but the slate isn't quite blank, is it? Not with how Faust and Vergilius were able to apply pressure in the initial stages of recruitment via well-timed mentions of 'engraving the aspect'. But they are a person who fundamentally lacks so much of what might otherwise give them the grounding and motivation to really be proactive in all this shit that just happens to them. A lot of how they're treated, and especially now with experiencing full-blast firehose racism from N Corp after getting frog-boiled by microaggressions from the Sinners, has served to instill in them a sense of learned helplessness. They have a lot of upsetting thoughts that they have no idea how to act on, and have been swiftly ground down into a mentality of "welp let's go throw ourselves into the suffering".
Case in point, they switch gears from this to making a crack about mounting the clockhead on the wall after they find their real head, eliciting an aghast look from Ishmael. Because like, bruh what do you even say to that.
Over at the next map node, Sinclair approaches Dante with a preemptive apology.
Sinclair: "Our foes might jab me in the heart over and over for that..."
Sinclair: "Will you... bear that for me?"
Narration: Sinclair was trembling so badly that it'd be pitiful for anyone to witness. I could tell he was desperately trying to suppress his fear.
Narration: It wouldn't be the first time Sinclair has died. Whenever he bit the dust, I made sure to bring him back.
Narration: But today, he's newly asking for my understanding. He looked determined to confront them directly even if it means he'll die again and again.
Narration: A feeling quite unlike the fright a usual battle evokes...
Narration: Maybe he's holding the kind of fear that comes with a certain courage. In that case...
Dante: <Are you scared, Sinclair?>
Dante: <Hmm? Did I say something weird?>
Sinclair: "No, it's just... I was reminded of a friend who asked me the same question."
There's a pause.
Sinclair: "... I agree with what Heathcliff said. Prosthetic head or not, you would've been the same person regardless, Dante. I guess the same could be said for my family."
Dante: <Thanks, Sinclair.>
And with that Sinclair charges into the fray, just as Dante realises they forgot to ask what his response had been when his friend asked that same question. But I'm sure this mystery friend will be of no consequence to the rest of the Canto.
Unfortunately, no better moment arrives to ask. With this next advance through town, they make it to the Sinclair estate. Or... what's left of it.
Narration: I took a moment to try and imagine what this town could have looked like during its peaceful times. To bring to mind the times when the trees we saw near the town still had lush, verdant leaves. How Sinclair would've been during those times. Or when everyone around him had died. I couldn't paint a clear picture of either happiness or despair.
Narration: Nonetheless, I only hope that Sinclair can brace himself for the misfortune he'll soon have to face.
The courtyard is a bristling forest of bodies, townsfolk of all shapes and sizes impaled upon the colossal nails. The mansion is enveloped in roaring flames, casting hellish orange light upon the snowcapped night, but where the other Sinners are concerned with the thicket of impaled dead Sinclair's gaze focuses immediately upon a certain corner of the yard.
Narration: Sinclair's expression alone was enough for meand all the other Sinners to guess who they were for.
Yi Sang: "... to execute the dead - this is nothing short of a devil's work."
Narration: Father, mother, and sister. The family he mentioned... that's where they should be resting.
Sinclair: "That whistling..."
???: "Kehehe. I mean, it's just too funny when you think about it."
Sinclair: "Kromer..."
Kromer: "I'm sure you'll find 'em around somewhere if you look hard enough. I do remember nailing those three."
Kromer: "Be a good boy, and I might just tell you where they are..."
Kromer: "Well, Sinclair? You've grown a spine, coming all the way here. Enough of one to look at a few dead bodies too, right?"
Sinclair: "Why... Just... Why all this...?"
Words begin to fail Sinclair as his emotions overwhelm him. Outis takes the opportunity to ask after the whereabouts of the Before Team, knowing that by rights they should've seen some sign of them already.
Kromer: "Ah~ Sinclair's got some buddies!"
Kromer: "Okay, okay. Watch closely. I'll turn on the lights, so open your eyes wide!"
It's a testament to how fucked this scene is that I only question the inexplicable dramatic spotlight reveal now as I transcribe this and not in the moment.
Gregor: "Effie...?"
Effie is barely breathing, unable to speak without coughing up blood. His right arm and both of his legs have been severed, prosthetics harvested from the dead of Calw cruelly stuffed in the bleeding stumps.
Faust: "..."
Faust: "In his current state, it will take around two days for him to completely die. And the pole piercing through him will only amplify his suffering."
Dante: <Then...>
Outis: "Manager, I happen to know of a method to end a life with as little pain as possible."
Outis: "May I ask you to give me the order?"
Dante looks to Ishmael and Gregor, doubtless hoping that they can offer any reasonable alternative. They meet Dante's gaze, only to turn away.
Dante hears only the slightest rustle of Outis' clothes in the wind, and then silence. Effie is at peace.
Only for Kromer to roar with laughter.
Narration: At the same time, I could hear something else break.
Kromer: "Really, it's hilarious to watch you all care for each other when you'll all meet the same fate anyway!"
Kromer: "Brings you back, doesn't it, Sinclair? Your face back then was real priceless."
Sinclair: "Kromer."
Sinclair: "Yeah, I think that's the right way."
Sinclair: "You'll die by my-!"
Sinclair's declaration is interrupted by the sound of a nail being dragged across stone.
Guido, unmarked by his previous bout with the Sinners, trudges into the flame-lit courtyard of the Sinclar estate.
Kromer: "Guido, why couldn't you take out the others?"
Guido: "Forgive my ineptitude, O One Who Grips. My incompetence allowed them to escape."
Kromer: "You have to stay alert. You never know what's hidden under those cursed steel craniums."
Guido: "I shall keep your word at heart, O One Who Grips."
Kromer: "Since the reunion is over, I'll be heading back."
And with that, Kromer makes to return to the flames.
Sinclair: "Kromer!!!"
Kromer: "Nope, Sinclair."
Narration: A long smirk dances across Kromer's face; it's hard to tell if it's the violent blaze or Kromer's vice that is consuming the other.
Guys there had to be a better way to phrase this, she sounds like she's making a Breaking Bad joke in the middle of an emotionally heightened scene.
Battle is joined for the first of the two most difficult map nodes of the Canto - a gruelling three-wave gauntlet of increasingly high-ranked N Corp Inquisitors before the flames of Sinclair's home nearly at the release-day level cap, with one more twist of the knife for good measure.
Kromer is still observing the battle from offscreen, and every three turns she will whistle. This gives every N Corp Inquisitor on the field the status Kromer's Whistles, which is really just a dummy buff to explain the presence of the other buffs; 1 Attack Power Up, 1 Defence Power Up, and 2 Fanatic. Since Fanatic applies to both offensive and defensive skills so long as the primary target of each has Nails, this is effectively a whopping 3 base power boost to absolutely everything these guys are packing if the team are unfortunate enough to have a nail or two floating around. Even worse, Sinclair's adverse reaction to Kromer's whistling is not relegated to the realm of cutscenes - if he is fielded for these two battles, Kromer's Whistles will also drain a colossal 30 SP from him each time it triggers. Trust me, it's a stroke of incredible fortune that it first triggered under the circumstances shown in the screenshot, with 3/4ths of the opposition Staggered and unable to make use of the buff, otherwise Ishmael and Faust would be fucked. Even so it's fortunate that this lot are all max level, and that the SP scaling bug is now fixed compared to launch, or else this would've been nowhere near as smooth as it was - sin resonance comes in real handy with both Ishmael and Sinclair having plenty of Wrath to go around, as if they end up adjacent to each other in the skill deck for some Wrath Absolute Resonance it gives Sinclair a fighting chance at winning clashes with his s2 even in spite of the mental damage Kromer's presence causes.
Another upside to this team, and part of why I constructed it as I did, is that their damage affinities have decent coverage vs N Corp Inquisitors - their sin affinities are strictly Pride, Lust and Wrath, and physical typing either Pierce or Blunt. Faust resists Pride and Pierce, Ryoshu resists Lust, Ishmael resists Blunt, and Outis resists Pride. Sinclair is the odd man out for having no particularly relevant resistances, but we'll cut him some slack given the circumstances.
In the aftermath of the battle Sinclair lets out a roar of fury and charges headlong into the fray, rushing Kromer heedless of the remaining Inquisitors still in his way.
Heathcliff: "Hey, wait...!"
Narration: In response, he swings his weapon with a tremendous force I never thought he could exert, crushing the head of the one who grabbed him.
Narration: The Inquisitor collapses to the ground before even a gasp could escape their mouth.
Narration: Sinclair would normally keep to the back of our group; this was the first time I saw him charge in unprompted like that.
Bro is simply impressed by the boy's gumption, and possibly reassessing him as a bullying target.
Guido: "I remember with clarity that I had ended your lives. I undoubtedly witnessed torn brain tissue spill through the cracks in your skulls. And yet, here you heretics are, before me on your feet."
We'll put a pin in this for the postscript, it's very funny.
Guido fixes Dante with his piercing glare, and nods in understanding.
Guido: "You there, the one possessing the head of a heretic. You must be the false shepherd enticing this herd into blasphemy."
He inclines his head to the corpses impaled upon nails all around the courtyard - doubtless those of the missing LCCB operatives, to be more specific.
Guido: "They committed the grave sin of entering the site of hallowed rites with their unclean bodies. Thus, they have been punished with the same penalty as heretics receive. They have also been subjected to the humiliation of bodily mechanical intrusions being installed against their will."
Guido: "But you are different. The sin of worshipping a heretic is less severe than indulging in heresy oneself. Therefore, as long as you are willing to repent and cleanse your minds of sin... we, the Hammer, are willing to demonstrate forgiveness."
Guido: "So I implore you, ye pitiable foolish sinners, led astray by temptation. Shake off the allure of that false miracle, and kneel before me."
Dante, doubtless finding the idea of being 'worshipped' like some false idol by the Sinners simply too fucking funny to take seriously after the month they've had, cracks a joke in response.
Ishmael: "Dante... that man... he just insulted you. He doesn't see you as a human being."
Dante: <I mean, you guys call me clockface all the time too...>
Sis is RUSHING to beat the allegations.
Heathcliff: "So you think throwing some fancy words around will be enough to persuade us, eh..."
Heathcliff: "Listen up, Faceplate: You're the one who needs a little shaking off. Seems to me your human brain's just as defective."
I like to think that Heathcliff managed to genuinely upset the weird 7ft tall catholic nazi and bro is now purely flabbergasted trying to think of a followup that doesn't make him seem owned.
Guido: "You were given ample opportunity. You are no different from those we hung and nailed after all."
Guido: "I am a Hammer. I am a tool for the One Who Grips, tasked with the great mission of piercing the false flesh of heretics."
Guido: "I shall bind thee to a nail, and lay thee down furthest from the soil. For he who shan't repent-"
Guido: "... is not granted rest beneath the earth."
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
The real battle begins, with a second bout with Guido as the 'prize' at the end of the gauntlet.
I don't have a lot of counterplay for the regular SP drain Sinclair's going to be suffering, so I'll just have to do my best. Here we have a quite plain example of the effectiveness of resonance chains (after the system was overhauled to increase Offence Level because I'm pretty sure at launch it exclusively modified damage but shh), where Sinclair's relatively good Offence Level of 34 (an ID level of 30 with a +3 modifier on top of that and +1 from the Pride Res on top of that) giving him almost a fighting chance against Oppressive Preaching, but not quite.
However with 4 Pride A-Res the 'Struggling' forecast becomes Favoured instead, and as both parties flip tails in the subsequent clash Sinclair's floor of 5 is raised to a 7, allowing him to beat the N Corp Inquisitor and reflect his own debuff back at him.
And this is just a plain cool moment as a consequence of normal battles' dynamism mixed with the new clash animation system. Ishmael and Sinclair cross over each other to rush their respective foes, auras glowing around them as their Fanatic buffs activate...
... they are driven back-to-back...
And repel their foes simultaneously thanks to Sinclair coincidentally having one of his own coins destroyed, performing perfectly synchronised ripostes. You love to see the oomfies working together.
The second wave passes almost without incident, save Sinclair being Staggered by a counter he really had no means to avoid, leaving him a sitting duck to the Inquisitors the very same turn Kromer's whistle bolsters them. Here I decide to pull out all the stops and have Faust use Representations Emitter - not only is some multi-target Blunt damage a godsend against Inquisitors, the teamwide SP boost is badly needed, and thanks to winning a clash with that Grosshammer's Ponderous Inquisition attack she winds up just a tiny bit ahead on her own SP in the process.
This may have been bigbrain, as Sinclair arrives at the final wave vs Guido with just a little more badly-needed SP on the last turn before Kromer will whistle again. If he doesn't win some clashes this round, he may be in for a death spiral in the next. Unfortunately autotargeting has him going face-to-face with Guido in some quite unfavourable clashes, and Guido is much stronger this time around - he's boasting an inflated health pool, a new Counter, a new Lust skill that applies next-turn Fanatic to all allies on use, and the ruinous Annihilate Heritics reverse-coin skill that inflicts a perilous 10 Rupture and 5 Fragile next turn on top of dealing double damage if the target has any Nails. Even worse, he now comes with the passive Persistence, which at 50% health purges all negative status effects on him next turn, before giving him 1 Attack Power Up, 1 Defence Power Up and a colossal 4 Fanatic every turn for the rest of the battle. So in an attempt to even the odds this turn and put myself in as good a position as possible for his Sicko Mode later on, I make use of a somewhat niche function of Snagharpoon - it will always target the rearmost enemy in normal encounters, and in this one as in most encounters like it, the 'rearmost' enemy is the boss, Guido.
Snagharpoon is a pretty great base EGO - not only does Ishmael fuel its required 2 Wrath and 2 Gloom just fine, it has an impressive floor of 19 that counteracts its dismal -4 Offence Level, inflicts a hefty 6 Bind to help control clashes with particularly nasty enemies (like exactly this one), and I've already mentioned how its passive Compulsion augments her clashing ability.
Now, how much did it help? As this is a normal encounter I had no control over which of Guido's skills she decided to clash with, so she chose his weak Spike Drive slot (rolling an unimpressive 5+1x3) while leaving Sinclair to deal with the neutral odds of clashing with the much stronger Drive (4+5x2) instead. All I know is that Sinclair ultimately won that clash, and won the clash his s1 was redirected to instead, leading to him completely maxing out his SP just before Kromer came along to tax it.
I'm left with an almost untenable position - Sinclair is going first, which means that the whims of normal encounter autotargeting dictate that he must face Guido head-on while he's at his strongest and overcome a full 3/4ths of his skill slots.
But I've got something you don't, fucker.
I know it seems like I'm showing Ishmael insane favouritism here but trust me, all Sinclair does is twirl his big tree-halberd around a bit before slashing and I need to trim screenshots where I can.
Sinclair subsequently eats a whopping 34 damage from a failed clash with The Great Task Will Be Done, nearly staggering him with a single hit - but here Kromer's whistles for once work in our favour, as you may recall that Impending Day is a reverse-coin EGO even on Awakening.
Sinclair proceeds to dunk that man from orbit.
And Faust finishes the job, rendering him a mutilated husk. No coming back from that, fucker.
Narration: The ground shook as Guido finally fell. I couldn't help but wonder if we really did him in, yet we were too exhausted to bother and take his helmet off to check his breathing.
Narration: The corpse was mangled beyond recognition, its blood and organs spilling all over the floor.
Rodion: "Sinclair... calm down."
But Sinclair is in no mood to calm down. He keeps on mutilating the the body in a haze of fury, panting and sobbing all the while.
Sinclair: "I'll... kill... them all..."
But fortunately there is one among the Sinners brave enough to step in and quell Sinclair's ire.
In her... own unique way.
Rodion: "Oh, um... Shouldn't we do something?"
Ryoshu: "Leave 'em be. A couple calves tussling isn't worth intervening."
Don beats Sinclair so savagely that a cloud of dust rises in its wake, but thankfully she does stop before she renders him completely unconscious or worse.
Don Quixote: "Pray tell, how dost thou feel now?"
Dante: <you gave him a concussion how do you think he feels don>
Don Quixote: "Pardon my rash action. Oft I would find myself overcome by fervour, rampaging much the same as a riderless horse. At such moments, mine old friends helped me to come to myself - by beating me senseless."
Don Quixote: " 'Twas, at times, the only remedy to the fever that had overtaken me."
Ishmael: "Aha, so in that sense, Vergilis must be a good friend of yours too, right?"
Rodion: "Pfeh..."
Don Quixote: "Well- I..!"
Unbelievable, the Sinners always find time to cook one of their number even at a time like this.
Sinclair: "I'll get her for this..."
Sinclair: "I'll go to my home... and skewer that bitch... I'll skewer her with a stake...! And then-"
Sinclair devolves into agonised sobs, his anger finally leaving him.
Sinclair: "I... lost everything overnight..."
Sinclair: "Back then... they didn't parade their 'Nagel und Hammer' name around. You didn't see large groups like that in the open."
Sinclair: "But, at some point..."
Sinclair: "People calling themselves 'Hammers' started showing up in town, one by one, and..."
Rodion: "It's okay, kiddo. No need to push yourself..."
Narration: Rodya gently pat him on the back.
Sinclair: "This is all just a bad dream and I'm having trouble waking up..."
Sinclair: "It always comes... Every morning, before I open my eyes..."
Sinclair: "Maybe this time... I'll wake up and see my familiar ceiling... Just maybe."
After that, Sinclair bursts into tears in earnest, and the Sinners can do nothing but wait for it to pass.
Man. Kinda speaks for itself, really. In his time of greatest crisis the almost hormonal duality of Sinclair comes to the fore - unable to commit to the momentary courage his hatred of Kromer brings, unable to control the outpourings of grief for the life he used to have, swinging back and forth between the two like a pendulum in a way that merely renders him volatile and dangerous to be around to such an extent that in a way Don is able to see him as a kindred spirit (long enough to rearrange his entire facial structure at least). But there's no time for him to process any of it, no respite for him to come to grips with what happened and figure out who he is, because it's still Happening all around him, mentally plunging him back into the terror and trauma while inflicting all new nightmares in the process. He's the youngest Sinner, but he's also being prevented from growing up.
The break the Sinners take appears to be long enough for the worst of the flames to die down. The Sinners make their way into the charred shell of a place that was once Sinclair's home, and he leads them down to the basement. There they find a long tunnel leading them, where else, to the L Corp branch facility.
Heathcliff: "Why're you keeping this shifty shaft in your basement?"
Sinclair: "It wasn't here before."
Heathcliff: "What? Then how'd you know we oughta go to the basement?"
Sinclair: "It's like how magnetic fields draw a compass needle northward... I was brought here by intuition."
Faust: "..."
Sinclair: "You're bringing us along to use as sensors for the Boughs."
Sinclair stares at Faust, waiting for an answer. She ignores him entirely, moving past him to examine the door before them and concluding that the tunnel was dug and reinforced by N Corp's expeditionary forces during the occupation. Their intentions are laid bare, and the fierce resistance they will find within, by a little analysis of masonry.
Dante stares at her.
Faust: "... I am simply not in the position to comment on it."
Nowhere left to go but down, into the depths of the secrets hidden beneath Sinclair's family home, in pursuit of Kromer.
I don't have a lot of counterplay for the regular SP drain Sinclair's going to be suffering, so I'll just have to do my best. Here we have a quite plain example of the effectiveness of resonance chains (after the system was overhauled to increase Offence Level because I'm pretty sure at launch it exclusively modified damage but shh), where Sinclair's relatively good Offence Level of 34 (an ID level of 30 with a +3 modifier on top of that and +1 from the Pride Res on top of that) giving him almost a fighting chance against Oppressive Preaching, but not quite.
However with 4 Pride A-Res the 'Struggling' forecast becomes Favoured instead, and as both parties flip tails in the subsequent clash Sinclair's floor of 5 is raised to a 7, allowing him to beat the N Corp Inquisitor and reflect his own debuff back at him.
And this is just a plain cool moment as a consequence of normal battles' dynamism mixed with the new clash animation system. Ishmael and Sinclair cross over each other to rush their respective foes, auras glowing around them as their Fanatic buffs activate...
... they are driven back-to-back...
And repel their foes simultaneously thanks to Sinclair coincidentally having one of his own coins destroyed, performing perfectly synchronised ripostes. You love to see the oomfies working together.
The second wave passes almost without incident, save Sinclair being Staggered by a counter he really had no means to avoid, leaving him a sitting duck to the Inquisitors the very same turn Kromer's whistle bolsters them. Here I decide to pull out all the stops and have Faust use Representations Emitter - not only is some multi-target Blunt damage a godsend against Inquisitors, the teamwide SP boost is badly needed, and thanks to winning a clash with that Grosshammer's Ponderous Inquisition attack she winds up just a tiny bit ahead on her own SP in the process.
This may have been bigbrain, as Sinclair arrives at the final wave vs Guido with just a little more badly-needed SP on the last turn before Kromer will whistle again. If he doesn't win some clashes this round, he may be in for a death spiral in the next. Unfortunately autotargeting has him going face-to-face with Guido in some quite unfavourable clashes, and Guido is much stronger this time around - he's boasting an inflated health pool, a new Counter, a new Lust skill that applies next-turn Fanatic to all allies on use, and the ruinous Annihilate Heritics reverse-coin skill that inflicts a perilous 10 Rupture and 5 Fragile next turn on top of dealing double damage if the target has any Nails. Even worse, he now comes with the passive Persistence, which at 50% health purges all negative status effects on him next turn, before giving him 1 Attack Power Up, 1 Defence Power Up and a colossal 4 Fanatic every turn for the rest of the battle. So in an attempt to even the odds this turn and put myself in as good a position as possible for his Sicko Mode later on, I make use of a somewhat niche function of Snagharpoon - it will always target the rearmost enemy in normal encounters, and in this one as in most encounters like it, the 'rearmost' enemy is the boss, Guido.
Snagharpoon is a pretty great base EGO - not only does Ishmael fuel its required 2 Wrath and 2 Gloom just fine, it has an impressive floor of 19 that counteracts its dismal -4 Offence Level, inflicts a hefty 6 Bind to help control clashes with particularly nasty enemies (like exactly this one), and I've already mentioned how its passive Compulsion augments her clashing ability.
Now, how much did it help? As this is a normal encounter I had no control over which of Guido's skills she decided to clash with, so she chose his weak Spike Drive slot (rolling an unimpressive 5+1x3) while leaving Sinclair to deal with the neutral odds of clashing with the much stronger Drive (4+5x2) instead. All I know is that Sinclair ultimately won that clash, and won the clash his s1 was redirected to instead, leading to him completely maxing out his SP just before Kromer came along to tax it.
I'm left with an almost untenable position - Sinclair is going first, which means that the whims of normal encounter autotargeting dictate that he must face Guido head-on while he's at his strongest and overcome a full 3/4ths of his skill slots.
But I've got something you don't, fucker.
I know it seems like I'm showing Ishmael insane favouritism here but trust me, all Sinclair does is twirl his big tree-halberd around a bit before slashing and I need to trim screenshots where I can.
Sinclair subsequently eats a whopping 34 damage from a failed clash with The Great Task Will Be Done, nearly staggering him with a single hit - but here Kromer's whistles for once work in our favour, as you may recall that Impending Day is a reverse-coin EGO even on Awakening.
Sinclair proceeds to dunk that man from orbit.
And Faust finishes the job, rendering him a mutilated husk. No coming back from that, fucker.
Narration: The ground shook as Guido finally fell. I couldn't help but wonder if we really did him in, yet we were too exhausted to bother and take his helmet off to check his breathing.
Narration: The corpse was mangled beyond recognition, its blood and organs spilling all over the floor.
Rodion: "Sinclair... calm down."
But Sinclair is in no mood to calm down. He keeps on mutilating the the body in a haze of fury, panting and sobbing all the while.
Sinclair: "I'll... kill... them all..."
But fortunately there is one among the Sinners brave enough to step in and quell Sinclair's ire.
In her... own unique way.
Rodion: "Oh, um... Shouldn't we do something?"
Ryoshu: "Leave 'em be. A couple calves tussling isn't worth intervening."
Don beats Sinclair so savagely that a cloud of dust rises in its wake, but thankfully she does stop before she renders him completely unconscious or worse.
Don Quixote: "Pray tell, how dost thou feel now?"
Dante: <you gave him a concussion how do you think he feels don>
Don Quixote: "Pardon my rash action. Oft I would find myself overcome by fervour, rampaging much the same as a riderless horse. At such moments, mine old friends helped me to come to myself - by beating me senseless."
Don Quixote: " 'Twas, at times, the only remedy to the fever that had overtaken me."
Ishmael: "Aha, so in that sense, Vergilis must be a good friend of yours too, right?"
Rodion: "Pfeh..."
Don Quixote: "Well- I..!"
Unbelievable, the Sinners always find time to cook one of their number even at a time like this.
Sinclair: "I'll get her for this..."
Sinclair: "I'll go to my home... and skewer that bitch... I'll skewer her with a stake...! And then-"
Sinclair devolves into agonised sobs, his anger finally leaving him.
Sinclair: "I... lost everything overnight..."
Sinclair: "Back then... they didn't parade their 'Nagel und Hammer' name around. You didn't see large groups like that in the open."
Sinclair: "But, at some point..."
Sinclair: "People calling themselves 'Hammers' started showing up in town, one by one, and..."
Rodion: "It's okay, kiddo. No need to push yourself..."
Narration: Rodya gently pat him on the back.
Sinclair: "This is all just a bad dream and I'm having trouble waking up..."
Sinclair: "It always comes... Every morning, before I open my eyes..."
Sinclair: "Maybe this time... I'll wake up and see my familiar ceiling... Just maybe."
After that, Sinclair bursts into tears in earnest, and the Sinners can do nothing but wait for it to pass.
Man. Kinda speaks for itself, really. In his time of greatest crisis the almost hormonal duality of Sinclair comes to the fore - unable to commit to the momentary courage his hatred of Kromer brings, unable to control the outpourings of grief for the life he used to have, swinging back and forth between the two like a pendulum in a way that merely renders him volatile and dangerous to be around to such an extent that in a way Don is able to see him as a kindred spirit (long enough to rearrange his entire facial structure at least). But there's no time for him to process any of it, no respite for him to come to grips with what happened and figure out who he is, because it's still Happening all around him, mentally plunging him back into the terror and trauma while inflicting all new nightmares in the process. He's the youngest Sinner, but he's also being prevented from growing up.
The break the Sinners take appears to be long enough for the worst of the flames to die down. The Sinners make their way into the charred shell of a place that was once Sinclair's home, and he leads them down to the basement. There they find a long tunnel leading them, where else, to the L Corp branch facility.
Heathcliff: "Why're you keeping this shifty shaft in your basement?"
Sinclair: "It wasn't here before."
Heathcliff: "What? Then how'd you know we oughta go to the basement?"
Sinclair: "It's like how magnetic fields draw a compass needle northward... I was brought here by intuition."
Faust: "..."
Sinclair: "You're bringing us along to use as sensors for the Boughs."
Sinclair stares at Faust, waiting for an answer. She ignores him entirely, moving past him to examine the door before them and concluding that the tunnel was dug and reinforced by N Corp's expeditionary forces during the occupation. Their intentions are laid bare, and the fierce resistance they will find within, by a little analysis of masonry.
Dante stares at her.
Faust: "... I am simply not in the position to comment on it."
Nowhere left to go but down, into the depths of the secrets hidden beneath Sinclair's family home, in pursuit of Kromer.
Last edited:
- Location
- Ireland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh boy oh boy oh boy I've been waiting for this.
In Demian, Franz Kromer is one of Sinclair's earliest acquaintances, and in a grand sense is also the person who begins Sinclair's journey of growth as a human being.
In a less grand sense, Franz Kromer is Sinclair's childhood bully, a cruel and selfish boy just a few years Sinclair's elder, that Sinclair makes himself vulnerable around and who preys on that vulnerability to torment Sinclair: extorting him for money, forcing him to steal from his family, even going as far as to demand Sinclair trick his younger sisters into meeting with him so he can indulge the desires puberty has given him. Sinclair's story in Demian is of someone caught between a world of light and a world of darkness, and Franz Kromer is the one who first drags Sinclair across that threshold.
It's good.
It actually leads him to become physically sick multiple times as a young boy, causing such a shift in his personality and demeanor that his parents genuinely believe he may have been possessed.
If you zoom in on Dante's left shoulder, you can see something printed on their Executive Manager coat. "No.10".
Dante isn't just an Executive Manager. They're a Sinner too.
Extremely good stuff to lay out the groundwork for him, though it's really hard to tell what direction it'll take at this point.
Fitting that it craters his SP in here, it did much the same in the book.
This is Chapter 1 of Demian. Sinclair isn't just being prevented from growing up, he isn't just the youngest Sinner, he's literally at the very beginning of his story. Given that Demian is a book about Sinclair's growth from a child to an adult it's very appropriate, but it also means that more than anyone else so far Sinclair's path can be charted out in the broad strokes by the book. It's very interesting and I really really like it.
It's really genuinely quite upsetting seeing Sinclair straight up having a sobbing breakdown as he realises what's happening and realises he's powerless to stop it, Greg and Rodya both were evasive and unhappy about their spins on the main character seat, but they're both older and more experienced than Sinclair, so they could cope with it in a more reserved way. Sinclair, though? Poor guy is going through it.And then, faintly, there's something else. Not words, but a shrill whistle. A whistle that plunges Sinclair even deeper into the depths of his spiral.
Dante: <Calm down, Sinclair. What do you mean by whistles, and who is this 'wretched' woman?>
Sinclair: "She's waiting for me. That was a message calling for me!"
Narration: Resentful tears were streaming from Sinclair's face as he rambled.
So, this is the part where I talk about how I read the book that inspired Sinclair, Demian by Hermann Hesse. I won't be talking too much about the details of it because it could definitely give away parts of the Canto, but one of the things that I noted was that Christmas was a decently common motif during the book—at first it's a representation of everything Sinclair loves about his world, and as things continue it becomes a representation of Sinclair's growing dissatisfaction with how his life is going. It's definitely a fun beat to have this whole thing take place on a forcibly-remade Christmas Day, courtesy of Nagel und Hammer.
Sinclair: "It was snowy like this... and that song was playing..."
And here we're introduced to the name of the one Sinclair's been talking about all this time.
In Demian, Franz Kromer is one of Sinclair's earliest acquaintances, and in a grand sense is also the person who begins Sinclair's journey of growth as a human being.
In a less grand sense, Franz Kromer is Sinclair's childhood bully, a cruel and selfish boy just a few years Sinclair's elder, that Sinclair makes himself vulnerable around and who preys on that vulnerability to torment Sinclair: extorting him for money, forcing him to steal from his family, even going as far as to demand Sinclair trick his younger sisters into meeting with him so he can indulge the desires puberty has given him. Sinclair's story in Demian is of someone caught between a world of light and a world of darkness, and Franz Kromer is the one who first drags Sinclair across that threshold.
This is a great moment, because as you note often in the LP, Dante really doesn't do much. They often think about what they'd like to do, but whether they're nervous, afraid, unsure, or simply don't care enough, they rarely push themselves. This is, I think, maybe the first time that they actively take a gamble and try to Step In as a manager should, doing their best both to focus Sinclair by reminding him that it's not just his life at stake and to gather information that might prevent the other Sinners from dying.
It's good.
well that's just deeply fucking upsetting innitNarration: A prosthetic head hanging from a tree slowly turned to face us. Lights and sparks occasionally flickered within.
A Prosthetic Head: "Why... did you... return..."
Rodion: "... Sinclair, are those your neighbours?"
Sinclair: "It looks like they were... I really hope that isn't the case, though..."
Rodion and Sinclair watch grimly as the bare wires of the ruined prosthetic spark and short-circuit, the severed head's movements ceasing in a surge of discordant electronic noise. But then...
A Prosthetic Head: "Silent night..."
A Prosthetic Head: "Holy night..."
Every head hanging from the tree or burning in the fire beneath is singing the same song.
This is another really great moment that's pulling pretty hard from Demian—one of the things that torments Sinclair in his earliest days of Kromer's abuse is the fact that he cannot tell his family for fear of what they'll think of him, especially after Kromer begins to force him to sin against his family by stealing from them and lying to them. As a young boy, something like that is unthinkable for Sinclair, but he's forced into it anyway—and it often becomes a point of hysteric, ironic amusement and agony for him that his family treat him as an innocent child, their kindness and understanding only adding to his torment because he feels he doesn't deserve it but simply can't explain why.Sinclair: "My family said it's no different from wearing a hat or a watch..."
Sinclair: "But I just couldn't picture it well no matter how I approached it."
Sinclair: "And now, I'm the only survivor thanks to that."
Dante: <I'm sure the procedure seemed terrifying at such a young age. You don't have to feel guilty about that.>
Sinclair: "That's not it..."
Sinclair: "I'm afraid I'm not as innocent as you might think, Dante..."
It actually leads him to become physically sick multiple times as a young boy, causing such a shift in his personality and demeanor that his parents genuinely believe he may have been possessed.
Yeah, this really hits the nail on the head (bad time to use that wording oopsies) about Dante. They want to do things, but they simply can't, won't, or don't. And whatever the reasoning is, whatever the excuse is, good intentions won't actually accomplish anything at all.
If you zoom in on Dante's left shoulder, you can see something printed on their Executive Manager coat. "No.10".
Dante isn't just an Executive Manager. They're a Sinner too.
Veeeeeeeeery interesting bit from Meursault here, most notable because it's essentially the first time Meursault has spoke at length about anything, ever. He easily says more here than he says throughout the entirety of Selva Obscura and Cantos 1 and 2, and it's about his history with a corporation all about defining humanity and human experience.Meursault doesn't volunteer information about himself. That's one of the few personality traits we have quite a firm grasp of at this early stage. Which means even Dante can tell that Meursault shouldn't be talking about himself unprompted like this. The man waited until what he could construe as a direct request to explain that Sinclair was having a panic attack about going to K Corp right next to him. So why is he talking about N Corp?
Gregor: "Why didn't you tell us that earlier? You carry one of those freaky weapons then?"
Meursault: "Am I obligated to elaborate?"
Heathcliff: "The hell... Why don't you explain what makes you different from those nutters, then?"
Heathcliff: "Listen, mate... As much as I like to call our daft manager a clockface, I don't think they deserve by any means to be on the stake or chopping block."
Heathcliff: "Those buggers talk big about purifying and all, but all I see are a bunch of loonies who just needed an excuse to kill, eh?"
SCREWLOOSE WALLOP MENTION!?!?! i'm sorry i couldn't resist
Meursault: "There was a time when I thought about such things. Though I did not come to a conclusion."
Heathcliff: "I want that damn conclusion now! Are you gonna up and butcher all the townsfolk if your manager just says so?"
Meursault: "Must I give an answer? That does not aid us in handling our work."
Meursault: "An employee must follow their employer's orders. The terms Vergilius presented state as much."
Meursault: "If the manager orders me to do such a thing, I will do it. I may provide my input if I am told that it is necessary, but I do not have a habit of rambling my thoughts unprompted."
Methinks Meursault doth protest too much here. No one would know he was affiliated with N Corp had he not chosen to speak up multiple times this Canto, with zero pressure from Dante to do so. Now, is he ashamed of his past affiliation with N Corp and thus trying to dodge implications that he would be as loyal and amoral as any of these zealots? I would say... based on some things we'll talk about in the postscript I think Meursault is dodging around what he truly feels about N Corp because he's disappointed in what they have to offer. There but for the grace of god go he, because he found their definition of what constitutes humanity to be lacking. Now, he's just annoyed he's managed to trap himself in a pointless conversation because of an old hyperfixation becoming relevant to the situation.
Extremely good stuff to lay out the groundwork for him, though it's really hard to tell what direction it'll take at this point.
This is one of the things I love most about Limbus—you can easily see a lesser story choosing to take the easy way out by having its characters never connect the dots on basic things or speculate out loud like this, another game might have chosen to never have the Sinners employ basic pattern recognition to understand what's actually going on with their destinations or toss around theories about what's happening with Dante, but Limbus does do those things and feels more put together and more smartly written as a result.
There's something quite sweet about Sinclair actually taking the time to ask Dante if it's alright that he place the burden of his resurrection on them. It's clearly the first time anyone has done that rather than simply expect it of them, and while there's much more to Sinclair's fucked up mental state here that we're about to see, I do like that he's able to hold himself together enough to understand that his mad, hate-filled quest for vengeance is going to result in inflicting a lot of pain on Dante and to acknowledge that and ask for their help rather than simply demand it of them.Sinclair: "Our foes might jab me in the heart over and over for that..."
Sinclair: "Will you... bear that for me?"
Narration: Sinclair was trembling so badly that it'd be pitiful for anyone to witness. I could tell he was desperately trying to suppress his fear.
Narration: It wouldn't be the first time Sinclair has died. Whenever he bit the dust, I made sure to bring him back.
Narration: But today, he's newly asking for my understanding. He looked determined to confront them directly even if it means he'll die again and again.
Narration: A feeling quite unlike the fright a usual battle evokes...
Narration: Maybe he's holding the kind of fear that comes with a certain courage. In that case...
Dante: <Are you scared, Sinclair?>
Dante: <Hmm? Did I say something weird?>
Sinclair: "No, it's just... I was reminded of a friend who asked me the same question."
There's a pause.
Sinclair: "... I agree with what Heathcliff said. Prosthetic head or not, you would've been the same person regardless, Dante. I guess the same could be said for my family."
Dante: <Thanks, Sinclair.>
well this is really fucking upsetting innitKromer: "Ah~ Sinclair's got some buddies!"
Kromer: "Okay, okay. Watch closely. I'll turn on the lights, so open your eyes wide!"
It's a testament to how fucked this scene is that I only question the inexplicable dramatic spotlight reveal now as I transcribe this and not in the moment.
Gregor: "Effie...?"
Effie is barely breathing, unable to speak without coughing up blood. His right arm and both of his legs have been severed, prosthetics harvested from the dead of Calw cruelly stuffed in the bleeding stumps.
Yet another pull from Demian—Franz Kromer has a distinctive whistle that all the other boys recognise, and it's this particular whistle that becomes his signal for Sinclair to come to him and accept his newest form of torment. Sinclair ultimately begins to grow so paranoid about the whistle that he feels he can hear it even in his sleep, and the sound of it ends up as a sincere source of trauma for the young boy.
Fitting that it craters his SP in here, it did much the same in the book.
I do like all the little hints and views we get of the fact that Sinclair is holding enough Raw Fucking Strength in him that when he unleashes it he's genuinely able to blindside and absolutely shock one of the most violent members of the bus with what he's capable of.Heathcliff: "Hey, wait...!"
Narration: In response, he swings his weapon with a tremendous force I never thought he could exert, crushing the head of the one who grabbed him.
Narration: The Inquisitor collapses to the ground before even a gasp could escape their mouth.
Narration: Sinclair would normally keep to the back of our group; this was the first time I saw him charge in unprompted like that.
Bro is simply impressed by the boy's gumption, and possibly reassessing him as a bullying target.
What do you even say here? Sinclair's the youngest of the Sinner and it's never more clear than here. He can't accept what happened with Gregor's depressed, hollow resignation, nor can he give himself the cold comfort of Rodya's surety that she deserves to suffer a little longer for the mistakes that she made and the pain she brought on others. All Sinclair can do is swing wildly between white-hot fury and hatred and bitter, unimaginable sorrow, still desperately trying to process the loss that very likely brought him to Limbus Company in the first place as it's thrown in his face in the most intentionally upsetting ways possible. It's no wonder he just breaks down in tears at this point—everything has been such a nightmarish experience that he can hardly believe it's real at all.
Sinclair: "I'll get her for this..."
Sinclair: "I'll go to my home... and skewer that bitch... I'll skewer her with a stake...! And then-"
Sinclair devolves into agonised sobs, his anger finally leaving him.
Sinclair: "I... lost everything overnight..."
Sinclair: "Back then... they didn't parade their 'Nagel und Hammer' name around. You didn't see large groups like that in the open."
Sinclair: "But, at some point..."
Sinclair: "People calling themselves 'Hammers' started showing up in town, one by one, and..."
Rodion: "It's okay, kiddo. No need to push yourself..."
Narration: Rodya gently pat him on the back.
Sinclair: "This is all just a bad dream and I'm having trouble waking up..."
Sinclair: "It always comes... Every morning, before I open my eyes..."
Sinclair: "Maybe this time... I'll wake up and see my familiar ceiling... Just maybe."
After that, Sinclair bursts int otears in earnest, and the Sinners can do nothing but wait for it to pass.
This is one of the things I think is most interesting about Sinclair's particular treatment—Both Gregor and Rodya were set "after" their book, in a sense, or at the very least they're pulled more from the latter stages. Sinclair, though? Sinclair being tormented around Christmas by Kromer, left to swing wildly between his two existing selves and trapped in a hell he can't possibly escape?
This is Chapter 1 of Demian. Sinclair isn't just being prevented from growing up, he isn't just the youngest Sinner, he's literally at the very beginning of his story. Given that Demian is a book about Sinclair's growth from a child to an adult it's very appropriate, but it also means that more than anyone else so far Sinclair's path can be charted out in the broad strokes by the book. It's very interesting and I really really like it.
Dybbukpossesed
Falling Somewhere
- Location
- California
Ah N. Corp... Just so eminently hateable on so many levels. I think what I hate most about them is the sheer hypocrisy though. Look at those hammers and the sheer mass of armor they move and fight in. There's no way a baseline human is swinging that shit around with any amount of training. These people have very obviously gotten strength augmentations at the very least in order to carry out their work and I'd love to know what mental gymnastics they jump through to justify it to themselves.