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Sixteen - Come now, I don't talk to people who don't exist.
Happy new year! Updates should be coming a lot quicker now that the holidays are over. Where we last left off, we were about to attend a "ceremony" being hosted by the shadows of a weirdo mountain village. How exciting! Let's go.
No Dad on it this time though.
More different shadows speaking.
Strange Shadow: Yes. Welcome to the ceremony.
Strange Shadow: Daddy? Is it you that I hear, still, beyond the snow? Is it you that I hear, behind the curtain of mist? Is it for you or for me that I am here today?
Strange Shadow: You are here for the ceremony.
Strange Shadow: Images are coming back to me. I can see you again at the back of the house. I watch you from afar, I am in the forest, I see you from afar and I cry and I don't know why. I think that something is wrong but I don't know why. It is important. It doesn't matter anymore.
Strange Shadow: It's the ceremony.
Strange Shadow: Do I need to forget? Are you leading me to forgetting, is that where the night is bringing me? Must I forget to move forward? Must I forget in order to be able to cross this mountain, must I forget so that I may finally be free?
Strange Shadow: The ceremony burns lest we forget.
Strange Shadow: Yes, yes, the ceremony burns to remember.
Strange Shadow: The ceremony is so. Let the ceremony begin.
Music - Burn
Huh, that burned quick.
These guys have long range, so we'll just have to tank this one. Ohhh, Frida!
You shouldn't be so unkind to yourself...
Okay, we could have used Protector on her, but look. PP is precious.
We have to get the Vivacious memories on these tiles, which is even easier than it sounds, because-
These guys are so dumb they will walk right over them to get to us or our allies.
So Frida served a valuable purpose as bait!
There's an achievement for having all of them still alive in the second half of the battle, which is actually harder to get than just getting through it normally.
Strange Shadow: We grow old. Sometimes in a day, sometimes in a sentence, we grow old. We don't need much.
Strange Shadow: Such is the ceremony.
And they're all gone, so now we just have to wait until turn 10. On turn 10, they start talking again.
Strange Shadow: You are a traveller. You were born in the snow, you were born in the shadows; in our shadows, in our shadowy hands, you were born a traveller.
Strange Shadow: You can still become so many things.
Oh great, it's these douches from Chapter 1.
Now we get to decide a sort of "second class" to become, which determines setups and goals in certain fights throughout the game, and also modifies some of our skills.
In the last LP, we chose Stranger for Frida.
You burn, you have burned for so long now... There are fires that never cauterise, that will never cauterise, whose flames we have fanned so much that it seems they will never die. There is blood that never coagulates. You know it is true. Or perhaps you'd rather forget? You are a traveller, it is true, but aren't you maybe more of a deserter? Someone who flees, as you did before?
Wherever you go, you recognise nothing. Wherever you travel, no one recognises you. Those who you meet are a blur, indifferent; never unpleasant, never agreeable; your place is nowhere, neither where you come from, nor where you are going. Nonetheless, this suits you. You are a stranger. You are someone passing through. Is that it?
And yet you want to discover. And yet you want to explore, you want to go higher, further even if you burn. You want to travel for yourself and for your memories; you want to honour by walking, by walking further. Without the voyage you would be nothing. You want to be an adventurer. You are a pilgrim. Is that your desire?
Haþuwīgą is so obviously an Adventurer there's no need for a vote. I'll say what Deserter does when it comes up though.
I want to walk the road and live, at long last, beyond myself. I am an adventurer.
So be it, Adventurer. May you survive the long journey that awaits you.
Now for the second half of the fight. As you can probably see, 6 more enemies on the field might have been a bit of an issue.
Even worse are these guys though.
This Rekindle ability of theirs gives +10 PP to other enemies, allowing them to cast even more attacks on us.
The one silver lining is that the Dusk Shadows are content to not interact with anything, just standing there. I'll take them not attacking after that fight at the end of Chapter 1.
But with Fairy Tale distractions and our usual great Humor, we're able to make it and get some FAT xps. A fine reward for the ceremony.
Frida Death Count: 22
Now we have to travel to the mountain. But first, leveling up.
Can always use more "allies" on the battlefield. Absence is part of the "Ex-Nihilo" branch of skills, the theme of which... I'm kind of unsure about? Maybe just conjuring up the resolve to continue out of nowhere?
We'll probably get to around level 30 on this run. Halfway there!
Goodbye friends! We will miss you.
Most of you.
Some of you.
Okay at least a couple of you.
Ah, but of course we have to rest in a shitty refuge first. Nothing can ever be easy.
At least this one isn't abandoned.
Please don't be an asshole.
Hello. Thank you! On the road, it's rare to receive a welcome.
Fredrik: You know, I'm an old hunter who rarely speaks to anyone anymore. Company entertains me and I have nothing against human beings. What are you doing so high up in the mountains, traveller? Are you lost?
"High"? If only...
That's a bit of a stretch Haþuwīgą but points for trying to make a drug joke!
Fredrik You're heading towards the pass? In the middle of winter? Wearing that? (He sniggers) Are you kidding? The wind up there tears trees out of the ground every day. It's been snowing constantly for a month. I had to leave my house several times because of avalanches, even though we're in the lower reaches. I have been here three days, waiting for it to calm down.
Oh, you know, I've crossed the tundra from the central mountains wearing this, with barely a blanket to sleep under, I can take it.
Fredrik: (He seems a bit impressed) The tundra? A skinny thing like you? Ha... That's a two-week trip... You're still alive? You're determined, aren't you? It's true that you'll reach the pass faster than by crossing the damned plain. You're there in two days, at worst three given the weather. But the climate is different up there and on the plain. There is no comparison. I lived in the tundra, once. You know, the blizzards on the plain are nothing next to the flurries up there. For ten years I lived in the upper reaches with my wife. She died last year, during a snowdrift. She knew the place by heart, but, well with age... I'm not used to village life, but I'll have to get used to it.
In two months it will be worse, and I don't want to hang around forever.
Fredrik: That's quite an ordeal. I hope you'll make it out alive. (He rummages through the bags scattered around the room) Here! This is something my wife used to wear. Put this on your back and you'll last longer. If she lasted ten years with it, you'll survive two days!
We have the option to refuse the coat he offers us here. If we do, then the party member we missed would offer us his. If we missed him or if we still refuse, we don't get the upcoming change to a rad coat sprite, and at the end of the chapter we are treated to a pretty gruesome description of losing one of our hands to frostbite.
I recorded taking the coat, but did a separate run refusing it and will show some shots from that. It's a little disappointing because the character sprite doesn't actually change to missing the hand, at least not any time in the next couple chapters. Just some dialogue changes as far as I can tell.
If we refuse, he says this:
"(He laughs) You're a warrior, huh? Barely larger than an ash tree yet it seems as if you're about to kill a wolf with your bare hands." Which is pretty awesome.
But we'll accept for now.
Ah, that's a good idea. Thank you!
Fredrik: Not at all, traveller. It would make me sad to see such a pretty young lady die so stupidly. Well, there is only one bed. It's yours if you want to rest. I rested not long ago. Safe travels if I'm not here when you leave.
Thank you! I'm going to rest.
Time to hit the hay! This guy seems okay, aside from the pretty comment.
Strange Shadow: Overwhelming, I can feel her breath right here. Right here I can feel her presence, constant, right here I can feel her blind gaze fixed on me.
Well, we'll probably be fine, but just in case: Frida time.
Really? I'll be able to flirt with a polar bear. I'm delighted.
I wouldn't put that past this girl.
Anyway, Frida won't have to stand alone this time! We have a smaller version to watch over her and reduce the Power Points enemies have. Thanks Ms. Absence!
Perfect distractionsallies.
Eep. Good thing I remembered to check for traps still.
(It would have been fine either way though.)
Frida Death Count: 22
Damn, no chance to save before the next battle.
It does technically count as a separate encounter though, so we can summon our best minionfriend again!
But that's in the past now! I'm positive, I'm positive!
(Because for us, there weren't any people in the tundra! 
smile:
Frida Death Count: 23
Damnit, typos. Because of the way the system handles dialogue, this one will persist throughout the battle too. Oh well, great music at least.
Music - White fight
Yeah, I doubt too, homegirl.
Oh geez, and I thought those shadows in the village were absolute units. In awe at the size of this lady. Also kind of a weird range. Between that and the traps, there definitely seems to be a path we're supposed to follow here. But you know how we feel about that.
Yikes, what did we ever do to this mountain?
She has rad skill names too.
I accidentally picked the same dialogue options for Frida as a previous time here. Whoops! Will be fixed next time.
There's more messages as we get close, with us being pushed back each turn as well.
The mountain does crazy damage at this range, causing Haþuwīgą to fail for one of the few times ever!
We can't continue without 100% success in this case either, rip
Okay, by “next time”, I meant NEXT next time, wrt Frida. This time I took the +Movement option from Frida and just hoofed it as straight as I could. Brute force is the superior tactic, always!
Shadow of the MouNtain: Come! Come to me where only your will can conquer, to where your soul takes root - there where your spirit finally declares itself, I await you! I will burn your body and your memory in the same exhaustion, at the same temperature, until you can only tell them apart through trickery! There where the shadow is real and at the threshold of fire, I await you traveller. I await you on the frontier.
She seems nice. I'm sure this climb will be a walk in the park. Find out next time!
Frida Death Count: 23