Quesada's Swan

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Now time to hotfoot it in this volcano!

I face new monsters like the Igniter Moles, Lava Atlases, and Lizard Paladins here!

I'm getting better at using Rokurou's Vengeful Soul Burst artes...it must be because the Lizard Paladins attacks are easy to telegraph...

I switch Velvet with Eizen this time...

After a few more battles, I see a huge rock giant walking around with clouds of thick malevolence, this must be another code red daemon...

I walk to a small narrow end where a Katz Box is! Rescuing the Katz gives us Bushy Eyebrows!

Now for the code red...

But after a battle, I change my mind and cross a narrow crossing, where Velvet restates our goal: to get Melchior's soul to wake the Empyreans up.

Laphicet asks if she's okay.

Velvet's small smile when she mentions eating Melchior makes it look like she's a bona-fide villain. In another story, she might be...

Laphicet brings up what happened to her after she consumed Teresa and Oscar in Baird Marsh...

She tells him that she hasn't collapsed after taking Shigure's soul.

Velvet: "...Look at me. I'm fine, right? Does it seem like I'm faking it?"

Velvet thinks she's now used to consuming powerful souls after Oscar and Teresa...

Laphicet: "You're not just used to it. You've changed." Yes, she has. She didn't care about being labeled "Lord of Calamity," and now here she is embracing that title...

Laphicet: "Just as I changed after finding my free will, you've gotten stronger through our travels too. You faced down many sorrows and hardships, and overcame them all."
Velvet: "Did I, though?"
Laphicet: "You did! And that's why I—"

Someone's stomach is growling...

Velvet might make Laphicet a quiche. Laphicet asks for pudding.

Velvet notices Laphicet's trying to make her feel better. Since malakhim don't need food, that's how she knows.

Velvet: "All right, let's go and find me some Melchior to eat."

---

I face off against the code red here: the Titan! He's weak against non elemental attacks, but strong against fire and earth attacks...

This code red has a high level of defense!

We manage to topple the daemon over, but he falls on top of Rokurou!

We now have the Titan's health down thanks to Magilou, Laphicet, and Eizen's artes!

Rokurou falls easily to the Titan!

But I revive him, and slowly finish off the Titan, and win a Juggernaut's Glacite!

I climb a branch of red vines and find a heap of Katz spirits!

Magilou mentions one battle's victory as "perfalmost..."

Eizen: "Maybe don't invent new words." Yes, please Magilou, don't do that!

Heading down into a long cavern, where I follow the trail of Katz spirits...

...and grab another Soul Bottle!

Two more areas to go before facing Melchior!

We're now deep in the cauldron caverns, which has more of an intense atmosphere than the caverns before we faced Shigure!

I switch Eizen for Eleanor this time in the battle roster...and accidentally make him the onscreen map character!

Eeee, the trail of Katz spirits go down into the lava!

Now I walk a long passage left of that area, and a right, leading down to another chest...

There's lots of flamestone pieces and ore around the small pockets of the cauldron cavern wall.

---

Going up an incline, Rokurou asks Magilou about Melchior...

Magilou: "To put it short, he's the exorcists' shadow...they're supposed to be free of malevolence, but they're only human, and so are those who they want to save. But sincerity and conviction alone won't save the world. To remain free of malevolence, they need someone to do their dirty work. A shadow."

Even Eleanor herself didn't know of Melchior's plans, which is the role of "the exorcists's shadow".

Rokurou wonders why he hasn't fallen to malevolence.

Magilou: "Because his belief in the exorcists as the saviors of the world is pure and unyielding. It is a mountain of ice that will neither boil nor melt nor break."

Magilou's seen his "frozen heart" firsthand.

Laphicet realizes something: She might have been an experiment for Melchior! This explains the "heart being broken many times" line she said back in the Calix.

Magilou: "Melchior was raising me to be the shadow for the next leader of the exorcists... [the Shepherd] himself."

She goes back to her chipper demeanor, calling it a "terrible mistake."

Rokurou: "So if things had gone as he planned, we'd be fighting you instead of Melchior."

Laphicet's happy Magilou's on their side.

Velvet: "If Magilou was running the Abbey..."
Eizen: "They would be completely unpredictable [and] fearsome."

Magilou calls it "a whole lot of fun." Ai ya...

Eleanor: "So Melchior... was my shadow too."

Is Eleanor having second thoughts?

Magilou: "There's nothing to be sad about. Removing shadows is part of a shadow's job. Even if I'm a failed shadow, I'm still a witch, and I cast a deeper darkness!"

---

We make it outside, to the higher peaks of the volcano now!

Velvet points out where Melchior is again: at the peak of the mountain.

Magilou: "Be careful. [He's] nothing like Shigure. He won't fight us head-on."

I carefully head north, down the steep small land bridge down to where two treasures are...

One of them has Mythril Earrings!

Once I get inside the upper cavern, I play another skit: Odds of Victory.

Eleanor's unsure whether the crew will win against Melchior.

Magilou: "I'd give us a four-to-one against. [...] Almost every trick I or any current exorcist knows can be traced back to him."

He definitely is the mind of the Abbey.

Magilou: "If I throw three artes at once, he'll pull six out of his hat. He knows our capabilites and he's got far more power."

But she counts on the other members of the crew: Velvet, Rokurou, and Laphicet to be the unpredictable factors.

She thinks things might go in their favor if they pull something that Melchior won't expect.

Eleanor: "We are challenging the hardest possible foe."

I get more nervous fighting Melchior than I am Shigure now thanks to that line...

Magilou reminds Eleanor again that Melchior's a smart, tricky one.

Eizen steps in, agreeing with Magilou.

Eizen: "After all [...] forewarned is forearmed, right?"

Magilou thinks he has no weaknesses whatsoever. Eizen thinks "looking at their feet" might be the best idea...

I continue crossing the upper caverns of the volcano...

There's a gap we can cross via geoboard that leads to another area...

Since the geotree's in this area as well...

I pick up a Mythril Talisman along the way.

I head south and east to a small dead end, and touch the geotree! Now I can use the geoboard for Mt. Killaraus!

We use the geoboard to leap across the vast gap, and make it to the second area of this cavern...

I collect another Elixir here!

Now I geoboard before the south exit of the cavern and find a save point here!