Chapter 4 for Ophilia and Tressa.

Ophilia

With ambiguous musings on the status of the afterlife in this setting and an antagonist who draws on the same sort of duality of faith philosophy that I enjoy in the Warcraft universe, this chapter offers lots of theological points for consideration. I just…have a lot of feelings about pseudo-Catholic religions in fantasy, ok?

So yeah, Mattias is evil and this isn’t even slightly surprising, but what is surprising is that his master plan apparently doesn’t include reviving the fallen god or make any mention of the gate most of the other final chapters pivot around. He just seems to be siphoning off Galdera’s power via human sacrifice to empower himself. I’m still not why he needed Lianna, unless she has a special connection to the Flame as a cleric of Aelfric. Eh, details. Everyone learns a valuable lesson about accepting death and not following guys who force entire villages to speak in ellipses, and Ophilia and Lianna return home in a heartwarming series of scenes that reaffirms their sisterly bond. If that’s a euphemism in this case and there’s actually some kind of sapphic subtext there I’ll leave it to someone else to parse out.

Oh, and we finally get to see the pontiff! The not!pope was curiously absent until now, and I’m left wondering where he stays if he’s not in the main cathedral.

Party banter highlights: Primrose and H’annit are clearly fans of Orange is the New Black, because all the slashy bits with Ophilia trigger when she’s locked up in the town jail. Therion shows that he knows how to think like a cult leader, Alfyn contemplates mortality in the strange way the whole chapter does where everyone pretends resurrection spells don’t exist in this setting, and Cyrus attempts to make the staging on this chapter’s events seem less geographically convenient.

Tressa

The stakes here may be as low as Tressa’s always have been, but this is a satisfying conclusion all the same. Tressa learns what’s most important to her and shares her experiences with someone who’ll value them even more, and Ali comes back and continues to be a friendly, plot-relevant rival. As everyone has already pointed out the boss does come out of nowhere, but to be fair Esmeralda the knife-tossing thief/cultist/whatever gets built up over the course of the chapter. That’s more than can be said of Alfyn’s final boss. She also gets props for being the first Chapter 4 boss in a while to be even slightly challenging, even if it was only because her five-hit attack is really strong and randomly scatters its damage.

And speaking of Alfyn, his story feels marginally less disconnected from the rest now, yay! His hero was the one writing the journal Tressa has been following all this time, and while this raises questions about why Tressa never noticed what had to have been a distinctly medical bent to the writings I’ll take that over nothing to tie these two into the bigger picture. In any case, Tressa gets to return home with a priceless stone and an IOU from a billionaire, no doubt ready to stimulate the hell out of her sleepy seaside town’s economy. All’s well that ends well for this tale of ethical capitalism…although maybe not for Noa’s adventures, but I think that’s going to be addressed in a sidequest.

Party banter highlights: Applying Therion and Darius’s suspicious use of “partner” it may be inferred that Alfyn wants to bone Ali. Cyrus provides exposition on the Wyndham family, Therion discusses what I’d already done with his Path Action at the Grandport market, Primrose has an interesting method of combating stage fright, and H’annit likes to watch Tressa get excited. Ahem.