When the moon draws to an end, You rise from your bed and prepare for the day ahead. Seraphine speaks to You along the way.
Seraphine: This is the day of truth then… Will Evenor be waiting for us at the end of this journey?
You shake your head and say that You somehow doubt she will be there.
Seraphine: I don't think she'll be there either, as much as I hate to admit it… But I suppose being optimistic never hurt anyone.
You say that You are afraid You will find something much darker than You could have ever expected in the fortress You are set to travel to.
Seraphine: If Evenor has been there, then I feel like that's a given. Death and destruction seem to follow her everywhere she goes… There have only ever been a few exceptions to that rule, and even so, I don't know if you count.
You confess that You do not know either, but You are choosing to not ask any questions on the matter either.
Seraphine: We'll find her sooner or later even if she's not at the fortress we're targeting today… She can't hide from the world forever, not as long as we have something to say about it.
You walk upstairs to the cardinals' room from there, and You find the Ashen Wolves gathered inside. You ask if the preparations for the upcoming battle are continuing apace.
Ernst: As a matter of fact, yes. We should be ready to leave within the hour… Though I'm a bit afraid of what we'll end up finding there.
Gabriel: I am too. After hearing about Evenor's past actions from Cyrus and Druilla… I can't seem to shake the fear that we're going to end up finding something we wish we never did.
Magnus: Fearing that we're going to find something tragic won't help our situation. We need to get out there and see what she's been up to.
Taiyin: I wish I could agree with you, but I'm too nervous about what Evenor tends to leave in her wake to be so confident… I guess that's just how it goes.
Saias: If Evenor was there recently, then this fort might have a clue that could point us in the right direction to track her down.
Tsubasa: At the same time, I doubt she would have gotten away with hiding constantly for the last five years if she left behind easy clues for people to follow to find her.
Ansel: We won't know for certain until we go and investigate for ourselves. We should take this beast by the horns and find a way to work with it.
Grey: Are Cyrus and Druilla planning on joining us for this? We could certainly use the extra help from people who used to be on the inside.
Eli: They will be coming. Hopefully, they'll be able to convince at least a few of the enemy soldiers to abandon their posts and stop fighting against us.
Quinn: The more soldiers we can get on our side–whether they're fighting with us directly or just abandoning the enemy faction–the better off we'll be in the long run.
Eli: I fear for what we will find at the end of this battle, but fear cannot hold us back forever. We must set out and end this as soon as possible.
Magnus: We can't forget that this is going to bring us one step closer to an alliance with the Kingdom as well.
Grey: You're right. The sooner we can clean up everyone who's hiding out in this strange fort, the sooner we can get Magnolia's help.
Ernst: And her help is something we desperately need… Though I somehow doubt those in the fort will be willing to let us claim it so easily.
Saias: Then we had best be ready to put up a good fight. Even if Evenor isn't there, this won't be an easy battle.
Gabriel: We can cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, we should set out. This fight isn't going to win itself.
Eli: I agree. This is one fight we can't afford to lose… Both for the sake of finding Evenor and so we can secure the Kingdom's help. Let's go, everyone.
Over the next few hours, You and the rest of the Ashen Wolves travel through the Kingdom, eventually arriving outside the fortress Magnolia pointed You toward. You gather with your allies near the building, and Cyrus and Druilla stand with You.
Taiyin: This place looks completely abandoned… Though I guess we should all know better than to actually fall for that by now.
Tsubasa: There's activity inside even if we can't see it right now. We need to be ready for when they inevitably leave to try and strike us down.
Cyrus: I'm confident all of them are just waiting for us to strike… Assuming they even know we're here to begin with.
Druilla: I doubt they know we're here at all. It may be in our best interests to take advantage of that and try to get the jump on them.
Ansel: Do you think it would be a better idea to try and sneak in? I don't know if they'll decide to fight us as long as we're outside the building.
Eli: It may be a good idea to try and get in there… Something about all of this has me doubting they'll come out to face us first.
Quinn: I have a bad feeling about this… Are we sure that going inside would be the best idea?
Eli: I don't know what would be the best idea at this point, but standing out here isn't going to fix anything. I understand that Evenor likely isn't going to be here, but if we charge inside, then our enemies won't be able to clear out any evidence left behind.
Quinn: Then we prepare to go inside at once. Is everyone ready?
Eli: We have to be. Come on.
You and the rest of the Ashen Wolves enter the building. You glance around and find much of the area shrouded in darkness.
Taiyin: I don't see anything… Are we sure anyone is even in here?
Magnus summons a fireball and uses it to light a torch lining the wall of the room. Enemy fighters make themselves known thanks to the new lighting, the flames illuminating their presences.
Magnus: There's someone in here… A lot of people, as a matter of fact.
Ansel: Something about them doesn't feel right… Wouldn't you agree?
You look a bit closer at the enemy soldiers and find that something about them feels off just as Ansel claims. You cannot quite put a finger on the reason behind it, but You are confident these soldiers should not appear the way they do.
Gabriel: They look halfway dead… This is exactly what I expected given the circumstances.
Grey: This definitely seems like the sort of place Evenor was in recently.
Saias: But she's not here… At least, I don't think she's here.
Cyrus: These are people she's hurt though. I'd know that dead look anywhere.
Druilla: These are victims of her human experimentation methods. I'm sure of it.
Eli: Maybe they'll be willing to hear us out.
Ernst: I somehow doubt it. Something about this still doesn't feel right.
Tsubasa: They're not alone… There are actual soldiers in here too.
Quinn: Then we had better turn our attention to the soldiers first and foremost.
Eli: I agree. We can work to free the victims of experimentation along the way. Try to not target them. I doubt they'll do much to hurt us, and if they do, it'll only be coercion. Take out as many of the actual soldiers as possible while avoiding the hostages.
You nod your understanding and slip into a combat stance. The rest of the Ashen Wolves do the same around You, and once all the preparations have been made, the battle begins.
You find yourself thinking back to another battle that took place five years ago with a similar premise. The reminder leaves a bitter taste on your tongue and casts your thoughts in Evenor's direction. Even though she is no doubt long gone from this location, You can still feel the pain and suffering she left behind thanks to the ways in which the hostages are looking at You and the rest of your allies. Their weary gazes only redouble your urge to help them to escape and live freely without the confines Evenor has placed on them through her experimentation.
Over the course of the fight, You and the rest of the Ashen Wolves power through the soldiers holding the experimentation victims hostage. You work to light the torches stationed on the walls along the way to bring more light to the battlefield. The hostages do not attack any of You, and You know that even if they did, they would have been too weak to deal any real damage. Instead, You turn your full focus to the soldiers. When You defeat the soldiers looking over a group of hostages, the experimentation victims scurry away quickly and without a word. You cannot help noticing just how frail they all appear, almost as if they have not seen the sun in weeks. You would not be surprised if that was the truth, but You do not want to push the subject either. Instead, You hope only to push through and help those who have been placed in this position to begin with.
When the battle ends and the soldiers have been eliminated, You gather with the rest of the Ashen Wolves at the center of the room that was your battlefield. The torches stationed around the edges of the room have all been lit by this point, allowing You to easily see the world around You along with your allies.
Eli: Gods above… I don't know what to say…
Ernst: That was… Horrible.
Cyrus: Now you can see it for yourselves… This is what Evenor does to people. It's what she's always done.
Druilla: A long time ago, she used to experiment on other Agarthans for the sake of furthering her research. Then, she realized that doing so would only diminish the number of allies she had, and so, she turned her attention to others.
Ernst: I had been hoping she would have stopped when the war began, but I suppose that was all wishful thinking.
Grey: If anything, there's an even greater need for experimentation victims to fight now. She needs all the extra power she can get.
Ansel: And unfortunately for every person who has ever crossed her path, that means experimenting on innocent people.
Taiyin: You know, when I look around at all the pain and suffering she left behind… I can't help feeling like I understand the previous emperor even less than I thought.
Magnus: I agree. I never expected to have much of anything in common with an emperor to begin with, but he… He allowed this to happen. He encouraged it.
Cyrus: The emperor funding her research is one reason it was allowed to get this far. More people survive her experimentation now, but that's not a bar anyone should need to clear.
Saias: It's sickening… We came all this way, and we still don't know where she is. We need to find her so we can stop her as soon as possible.
Tsubasa: If you ask me, we should look in the rest of the building. There could be other hostages left behind, and if there are, then we need to help them.
Quinn: On top of that, if there are pieces of information for us to find, then we won't know for certain until we begin to search the area.
Gabriel: I guess that settles that then… But I don't think I can stomach being alone right now… Not after everything we saw.
Eli: I understand… Perhaps we should divide ourselves into small groups to look around. That way, we can handle any ambushes in case there are other enemies gathered here.
Druilla: I hope that's not the case, but you're right in saying that it's best to be safe rather than sorry. Let's go.
You watch as the other members of the group section themselves off into small groups. You turn to Eli and Quinn, who are left as the final two in the main room after the other Ashen Wolves depart.
Eli: I suppose this leaves all of us together. Is that alright?
You nod and say that You are fine with this.
Eli: I'm glad to hear it. We should start to look around. If there's any information about Evenor to be found here, then it won't uncover itself without us putting in the effort first.
You follow Eli and Quinn through the halls of the building. The three of You are silent for a long time before Quinn turns to look at You.
Quinn: Professor, if you don't mind my asking… You had something of a relationship with Evenor before all of this began, yes?
You nod but admit that You are not sure what the depth of that relationship was.
Eli: That's right… You lost most of your memories before you came to the monastery five years ago.
Quinn: And you still don't know much about her?
You shake your head, saying that You do not remember what she did before You lost your memories but confident that You need to find her and make all of this right.
Eli: I wish there was a simpler way to find her… She's done so much to hurt so many people, but she still finds new ways to get away with it. No matter how many times I think about what she's done, it always seems to make me sick.
Quinn: I feel the same way… And if what Cyrus and Druilla say is true, then there are many others who agree. She has committed unspeakable horrors upon people who would even go so far as to call her their ally, and she never cared in the slightest about it.
You say that You want to speak with her face to face and make sure You know why she did all of this.
Quinn: What reason do you think she's going to give you?
You hesitate before admitting that You do not know, but You want to try and learn the truth regardless. You have seen the pain she leaves in her wake, and You refuse to leave others to suffer in such a way if there is something You can do to stop it.
Eli: I'm glad you have such noble goals, Professor… If there were more people in the world who wanted to ease the pain of others, then we wouldn't be in this situation. I doubt anything would have slipped this far out of our control.
You stop when You arrive in a small office hidden away from the rest of the building. You look at Eli and Quinn before stepping inside.
Eli: Most of these papers have been worn down over the years… I have to wonder what they used to say.
You pick up the clearest page of the bunch, wiping a thin layer of dust off it. Your eyes go wide as soon as You see it.
Seraphine: That handwriting… I don't know how I know this, but I'm confident that's Evenor's handwriting. It has to be.
You tell Eli and Quinn what Seraphine has just told You, your eyes going wide along the way.
Eli: I suppose there was something from her left behind after all…! That's certainly a pleasant surprise!
Quinn: What does it say?
You read the page, wincing as soon as You register it for what it is: a log of Evenor's past experiments.
Quinn: I suppose we should have known it wasn't going to be anything good as long as it had something to do with Evenor of all people… Damn it.
Eli: The layer of dust on the page was relatively thin… I can only assume this and the report come together to mean she was here at some point recently. She was in this fortress at some point within the last two months, I believe.
You continue to read through the report, and You find it to be rather old. Someone's name is etched on the top, and when You recognize it, You wince once more.
Quinn: Is something wrong?
You tell them that the person the report is about is the long-dead heir to the Adrestian Empire: Crescent von Faixnoye. The name is etched into the top of the page, and You can see the visible age of the information found there.
Eli: Gods above… I never would have thought… Did she…?
You hesitate before admitting that You do not know if she suffered through the experimentation or not.
Quinn: And now, there's no way for us to know… The princess has been gone for half a decade now. The Battle of Garreg Mach took a lot from us.
Eli: At the very least, we have evidence of Evenor having been here recently. It might not be what we were hoping in terms of pointing us in the right direction, but she was in this area. We may be able to use that to charge forward from here.
You look through the other pages on the desk and find a small stack of letters hidden away in one of the drawers. You find them to be exchanges between Evenor and someone else, though both Evenor's name and the name of the sender are not mentioned. You can only assume the details about who they really are were obscured for the sake of safety.
Quinn: Evenor was speaking with someone about recent events, I see… I don't like the sound of that.
Eli: None of these letters seem to explain where she was headed next… But this is more proof of her having been here at some point recently. If we can do a bit more investigating, then we may be able to find her.
Quinn: We should look through the rest of this office to make sure there's nothing else here for us to find.
You nod and begin to look through everything You can see. After a few minutes of searching though, You come up empty, realizing there is nothing else that will point You to where Evenor has gone. You ask if the others have found anything.
Eli: I'm afraid not… I suppose these letters and that report are all we have at this point.
Quinn: It's unfortunate… But at least we were able to find something. We can try to read over these more for any signs of clues about where she is now.
Eli: Maybe the others will have found something too. I'm not exactly getting my hopes up, but it wouldn't hurt to ask them.
You nod your agreement.
Quinn: Evenor Hepius… I never would have imagined that someone who once helped out the church's forces five years ago would turn around and do all of this, though I suppose the shock of her betrayal wore off after she initially stabbed everyone in the back.
You hesitate before nodding. You still are not certain about how You feel about her in detail, just knowing that she needs to be stopped before she can harm anyone else.
Eli: The sooner we can find her, the better… I just hope that ends up being at some point within the next few months. That would be a massive burden off all our shoulders.
You meet up with the rest of the Ashen Wolves soon afterward and find them all discussing in the main area of the fortress where the battle took place.
Taiyin: So? Was anyone able to find anything helpful?
Magnus: I'm afraid not. I looked everywhere I could, but…
Cyrus: We came up short as well.
Saias: I guess that if Evenor was here, she's long gone now.
Eli: That is true… But it seems to me there was something more to it.
Grey: What are you talking about?
You hold up the letters You were able to take from her office.
Quinn: These appear to be letters of correspondence with someone outside the fortress.
Ernst: Given the appearance of the paper, I would say they're rather new.
Ansel: I agree. Do we know who she was sending them to?
Eli: No. There are no names mentioned on the letters.
Druilla: That certainly sounds like something Evenor would do… She was always cautious to make sure she wouldn't end up being caught.
Gabriel: So what are we supposed to do now?
Tsubasa: We should take the letters with us back to the monastery for further investigation.
Quinn: I agree. There must be something in here we can use to find out where she is now.
Grey: It's not going to be easy to find her no matter how you look at it.
Ernst: That hasn't ever stopped us before. We just need to push forward.
Taiyin: I guess we should go back to the monastery now then.
Gabriel: I agree. The longer we stay here, the worse I feel.
Saias: Knowing what happened here… I understand. I feel the same way honestly.
Magnus: Then let's return to Garreg Mach so we can look through the letters more.
Ansel: First, I have to ask… Did anyone run into any trouble with lingering soldiers?
Tsubasa: No. As far as I can tell, this place is as good as abandoned now, and it was likely in that condition a long time before we arrived too.
Druilla: I believe it was. Evenor liked to conduct her work in isolated places where she wouldn't be disturbed.
Cyrus: And a lot of the time, that meant taking over the darkest, strangest building she could find.
Quinn: At least the harm she left behind has been resolved now… All the people she experimented on have been set free.
Eli: They ran away as soon as they realized they had been released… I can only hope they go on to live good lives after all of that. I know recovering from this can't be easy.
Quinn: We can try to reach out to the victims of the experimentation later on to help them. We may lack the resources to do so now, but…
Eli: One day, that won't be the case. I'd like to plan on doing that… But in the meantime, we still have a war to win, and that means returning to the monastery to look over these letters in more detail. As long as Evenor is at large, no one is safe, especially those who she views as vulnerable enough to conduct her experiments on.
You nod your agreement and vow to stop her no matter what.
Eli: That's the spirit. Now, let's go. We have a lot of work ahead of us.
You and the rest of the Ashen Wolves begin to return to the monastery. Seraphine's voice rings in your ears along the way.
Seraphine: That report Evenor wrote… It's strange, isn't it?
You nod and admit that You wonder why Evenor has been looking at the report from years ago recently.
Seraphine: I wonder about that too. Why would she carry something from years ago? More importantly, why didn't we hear about any of this five years ago? I would have expected to hear about it from the girl herself, but she never brought it up. We talked about the experimentation with her. We met Evenor with her… So why didn't Chris say anything?
You admit to not knowing, and You wish there was a way for You to hear the truth now.
Seraphine: I suppose we'll never know now though… We should look over the report again and see if we can find anything else of note. There could be something there to help us learn more.
You nod once again. You travel back to Garreg Mach primarily in silence from there, and You return to your room once You arrive. There, You look down at the page You picked up from the fortress, and You take in a careful breath before starting to look over it. It's only a single page, as if it was the start of a much longer report. As such, many of the details beyond basic information have been stripped away with the loss of the other pages.
Seraphine: Hold on a moment… Is it just me, or does this not match up?
You nod. You say that the age marked on the page doesn't line up with where Chris' age would have been in that year.
Seraphine: You're right… It is off. Where in the world would a contradiction like that come from?
You shake your head and admit to not understanding either.
Seraphine: I don't know how we're supposed to find the truth behind all of this though. We can't exactly go to the Empire and ask for the information they have about what happened years ago. Argades wouldn't allow us to do something like that, and we don't know if that information even still exists. Evenor could be holding onto it, and that loops right back around to the problem we had before.
You say that You will need to find a solution to all of this by finding Evenor herself.
Seraphine: It seems like that's the only option… And we can try to find out more about her with a bit of digging into those letters she left behind. There must be at least some clue we can use there.
You say this is something that can wait until the next day. For the time being, You are exhausted and do not know what to do about the strange contradiction in the information left behind by Evenor.
Seraphine: I agree. One way or another, we're going to find her. Those letters will point us to her. They just have to.
You nod and settle in for bed for the night. You keep thinking about the report that sits on your desk and the strange contradictions found within. You hope with everything You have that the letters You found will reveal who Evenor is working with and where she is with time. You are sure of it. You dream of finding her, but every time You try to speak to her in your nighttime visions, the words die away on your lips, just barely out of reach…
i am so tired
-Digital