A Mage Reborn, Book Two (WIP) - UPDATED August 7th | Book One Released!

[idonotlikeusernames]

@JBento

She can’t help you, because literally nobody understands what the everloving hell was done to you. You’re going to have to run through the Jovian library texts and cross-reference them with Thaubal’s notes.

If Ilya says the mc is a scholar who can be there the mc is a scholar who can be there. Then there is a chance to find out.

Also the chances of the knowledge falling into Arcadian hands intact are nonexistent and even if, by some miracle, it did a slave like the mc wouldn’t get to see any of it, let alone use it for his own benefit.

@JBento

She doesn’t care about the farmers and the innkeepers and the carpenters and whatnot

Yet they are the ones who will suffer most from a new continental war nonetheless.

@JBento

If Thalia is as bad as you say, she will immediately jump at the possibility of getting those phantasmas out of you

She both doesn’t seem to know how to do that and she doesn’t have enough people who can sustain a parasite that last part by her own admission. And my mc is not voluntarily going to make pureblooded babies, because he’s gay. But they’d probably force him to do it anyway at some point.

@JBento

Because you want to go back to Paramite territory, and that would mean the Arcadians would get genocided (again). Enemies don’t get help.

Check the list, my mc wants to go to Salantira to settle some unfinished business and then to Leaf’s end. Even if that is technically Parami territory it is such an ass end of nowhere that nobody cares about it by your own admission. Besides we can already go back to Parami territory but only to run pointless killing sprees on Arcadian orders.

@JBento

You’re only a slave because what you want to do would get them genocided.

An innkeeper in super remote town who wouldn’t even want to use magic anymore is going to lead to a genocide, sure. It’s Thalia’s own plans that call for a genocide, not anything my mc wants to do. The only people my mc might kill are some surviving associates of Mireil back in Salantira the exact people it seems Arcadia will force us to help in the upcoming Archangel section.

From a purely utilitarian point of view siding with Leon again, however repulsive that may be seems like it would spare far more lives in the end than going along with Thalia’s twisted vision that gains the mc absolutely nothing worthwhile.

@JBento

There’s going to be an ending where Eli helps you kill everyone else. It’s… not great, but it TECHNICALLY qualifies for what you want?

It’s a rotten ending that requires the mc to go mad and of course that is the point when Eli chooses to change his tune and genuinely help out again, because by then it doesn’t actually matter anymore for anything worthwhile…too little too late.

@Sujan_Dhakal

but that doesn’t mean you can’t influence them in someway or another

In what is currently in the game you cannot influence Arcadia, which in practice means Thalia in anything or any way at all certainly not on her genocidal goals and unnecessarily brutal tactics, no matter if your mc’s attitude towards Arcadia is pro, anti or neutral.
She also never listens to any of Yu’s more reasonable proposals. So the chances of being a positive influence seem to be very slim.

[Sujan_Dhakal]

On the one hand, Arcadia‘s initial plans seem way too excessive and heavy ended but that doesn’t mean you can’t influence them in someway or another; there’s also the fact that yes, they take non-Arcadians not seriously at all, and that’s the kind of attitude they need to change; yes, they’ve been treated badly before, but making allies with those who aren’t Arcadian is the kind of logistical thing they could use. Also, where’s this thing about having to sire pure blooded babies coming from? There’s literally no mention of this, like, at all in game

[JBento]

@idonotlikeusernames

If Ilya says the mc is a scholar who can be there the mc is a scholar who can be there. Then there is a chance to find out.

Ilya doesn’t actually run the Jovian Church. That’s the hierophant’s job. And the hierophant isn’t going to break the rules of the Jovian Church, because about 90% of the Jovian Church’s power comes EXACTLY from the fact that they’re the only ones who know how to do thaumic healing.

@idonotlikeusernames

Yet they are the ones who will suffer most from a new continental war nonetheless.

And Thalia doesn’t care, because none of them are a factor in any math she makes. “Dead Parami farmer” and “living Parami farmer” is not a meaningful distinction for Thalia, because her actual concern is that any Parami with institutional power constantly genocides, enslaves, and exploits any Arcadian they can get their hands on.

@idonotlikeusernames

She both doesn’t seem to know how to do that

Literally nobody knows how to do that. It might actually not be possible to do that at all. The MC’s situation isn’t the usual Arcadian situation with a normal compact with a phantasma. There’s literally three people in the entirety of history in the MC’s situation, and one of those is already dead.

@idonotlikeusernames

go to Salantira

Salantirans will genocide Arcadians just as quickly as Paramis. Evidence: they already did.

@idonotlikeusernames

go back to Parami territory but only to run pointless killing sprees on Arcadian orders.

Accompanied by a squad of loyal Arcadian mages. And none of those “killing sprees” (which is stretching the term beyond all significance) are meaningless - Thalia doesn’t have enough people to have them go on meaningless anythings, which is why the only back-up she can spare against the twins is Pony Spirit Gate Express with a bunch of potions.

@idonotlikeusernames

An innkeeper in super remote town

An anyone who knows where the Arcadians are is a security risk.

@idonotlikeusernames

spare far more lives

Maybe, but they’d be the wrong lives, because they’re the lives of genocidal slavers.

@Sujan_Dhakal

Arcadia‘s initial plans seem way too excessive and heavy ended

Thalia’s goal is “making sure Arcadians don’t get genocided again.” That means she needs to get rid of any non-Arcadian with vast amounts of institutional power, because about year and a half before you get resurrected, a Parami Duke genocided some more Arcadians and the current Parami king’s take on it was “let’s not punish him much”.

@Sujan_Dhakal

they take non-Arcadians not seriously at all, and that’s the kind of attitude they need to change

There’s two types of non-Arcadians as far as Thalia is concerned: the ones with power, who she needs to get rid of otherwise they’ll genocide Arcadians (evidence: all of history), and the ones without, who don’t matter because while they’re not a threat to Arcadians they were totally happy with letting Arcadians get genocided and enslaved, and Arcadians owe them absolutely nothing.

@Sujan_Dhakal

allies with those who aren’t Arcadian

Arcadians don’t have non-Arcadian allies. Param enslaved them until less than 4 years before chapter 3 and genocides them throughout history INCLUDING chapter 3, Salantira only didn’t do that as much because an Arcadian was running the show from inside a saint’s head, and the Jovian Church instigated all of it. The Empire and Yutai are not players in this game.

[Sujan_Dhakal]

That’s the problem, though; everybody assumes that Arcadia won’t have allies outside of their own people because everybody hates them, but there’s got to be some people out there who are sympathetic to their plight and some of them might even be in high levels of power. Worst case scenario, you can always stick to the usual strategy of extortion/bribery/whatever. And I also have to agree that the way she treats everybody including MC like ponds is justified; she’s being pragmatic about everything, even if she’s being a tad arrogant on top of that. If anything, that’s going to be what takes down Arcadia more than anything; if they’re not willing to spread outside of their own group, if they’re not willing to ally with other people, despite what these other peoples opinions might be, if they’re not willing to violate traditions, they’re not going to be able to succeed

[Gloomcat]

@Walking_IMHO

I feel like “Param supporters” are just people who are focusing on their character more than on “the bigger picture”.

That’s exactly it in my case.

If you view it from my MC’s perspective: He was tortured most of his childhood, he lived on the run after escaping with his friend’s sacrifice. The only homes he ever had were Aunt Bess and the White Fangs, and just when everything seemed good and stable dear sister comes in, kills the only generation that was actually worried about improving Arcadians’ lives that is also his friends’ brother, starts a war, puts a bomb using one of the most compassionate women ever as a detonator, he died a traitor’s death cuz he couldn’t tell the truth. He is then brought back to life only to be used, trapped with strangers who outright say they are going to kill the only resemblance of a family he has and start another war, and MC has no way of preventing that cuz his life is quite literally in their leader’s hands.

Who can see the bigger picture when you are about to lose everything again? And not only that, but you’ll have a hand on it. Can you blame me for wanting to run at the first chance to protect what is most precious to me, just like they are doing?

If I can’t blame them for threatening my friends due to everything they’ve lost, can they blame me for resenting them if I’m about to lose everything too?

[No_This_Is_Patrick]

@idonotlikeusernames

It’s a rotten ending that requires the mc to go mad and of course that is the point when Eli chooses to change his tune and genuinely help out again, because by then it doesn’t actually matter anymore for anything worthwhile…too little too late.

Eli chooses to go along with whatever the MC does, whether they wanna kill everyone, help everyone or just go their own way.

[Gloomcat]

@No_This_Is_Patrick

Eli chooses to go along with whatever the MC does

Not really, given the update. Eli seems to do what they think it’s best for MC, even if it goes against MC’s wishes.

[No_This_Is_Patrick]

I’m talking about later, obviously right now they’re pretty overprotective for the MC. There’s no doubt gonna be a choice soon I’d imagine whether we side with either Arcadia or Param, or just say fuck both of them they all should pay, and they’re with us whichever we choose. I’m just going by what the author has mentioned, so guess we just gotta wait and see.

[Walking_IMHO]

@Gloomcat

Who can see the bigger picture when you are about to lose everything again ? And not only that, but you’ll have a hand on it. Can you blame me for wanting to run at the first chance to protect what is most precious to me, just like they are doing?

There’s no reason to blame anyone because this game is all about choices But that also means that someone (me, for example) can see “the bigger picture” since it correlates with my MC’s point of view. My headcanon is that MC’s hair turned gray because of all the stress and pain he endured in his childhood (which gave him a free pass to joke about F’s gray hair lol) He is hurting all the time just as you said. But the thing that hurts the most is the betrayal of his friend(s). Thalia and others are not his friends so he doesn’t expect them to be welcoming and understanding, but White Fangs traveled for years, they fought a common war, why wasn’t it enough to give MC the benefit of the doubt? Why his and Leon’s love wasn’t enough? While Ilya and Saine have tried to help him in MC’s rather selfish opinion they backed down too easily. He wouldn’t have stopped just because Ante decided to show her mug in prison. He would have died for the freedom of his friends as he proved repeatedly by using his phantasma and risking his magic (which he can’t imagine living without because enchantment supremacy) MC doesn’t believe he has a place in Param anymore, but he desperately needs the distraction, some goal to achieve to not die from desperation alone. So it’s not all about selflessness, it’s also about perspective.
And I have this feeling that Leon did what he did because Ante poured s…t in his ears. Which is why she better quit her job as a spymaster and become a jovian priestess in the near future or she’s going to get it.

[Zhann]

I’m calling it now, the Order of the Broken Flame are the big bad guys and this whole pro-Param vs pro-Arcadia is pointless.

[Vofademp]

That wouldn’t be such a terrible turn of events personally, because my MC rn have 0 right choices.

Option 1: stay with the Arcadians, people that want you around only to exploit you dry for a cause that you never really even considered until they deem you a liability.

Option 2: go back to Param to the guy that went murder mode and burned you to death.

Option 3: go insane and kill everyone.

Maybe that plot twist could open up new possibilities to get me out of this no-win situation lol

[idonotlikeusernames]

@No_This_Is_Patrick

I’m talking about later, obviously right now they’re pretty overprotective for the MC. There’s no doubt gonna be a choice soon

So by then it’s obviously gonna be too little too late, given what we know from the spoiler.

In the more immediate present Eli, in addition to serving as the mc’s jailer is participating in tortuously painful “healing” procedures on the orders of Thalia all so the mc can use the parasites more, which is also a tortuously painful experience. So, yeah, real good vibrations in Arcadia.

Your return from Aulain had been followed by a long, tumultuous recovery period, in which Eli worked tirelessly with Tahlia to heal the damage that had been done to your mana ducts. Though the pair tried their best, it had remained a painful and exhausting experience, and you had frequently wondered if you were staring death in the face once more. The “healing” procedures Eli and Thalia use are so incredibly painful they really can be considered torture, especially since they are done only so the mc can use the parasites more often, an experience that is also torture and is then gonna require more extremely painful “healing”.
A lovely little cycle of pain and torture that really makes them little different from Thaubal except that Eli feigns bedside manners.

I guess that is the way the mc might finally go mad enough and snap to get Eli’s spoilered ending.

@No_This_Is_Patrick

whether they wanna kill everyone

It doesn’t seem to be a want…really the spoiler seemed to indicate that by that point the mc is completely crazy and then Eli thinks it’s a good idea to finally come around and genuinely be on their side again, when the mc no longer cares for anything or anyone, including Eli. So, yeah, great choice Eli. Thanks for nothing

I hope by that ending we find some way to torture the parasites themselves, cause it seems that may be the only “fun” that would be left for my mc by that ending. Particularly since it seems we’re never gonna get the parasites out.

@Gloomcat

If I can’t blame them for threatening my friends due to everything they’ve lost, can they blame me for resenting them if I’m about to lose everything too?

And the gleeful way they talk about knowing everything sister did to the mc without even shred of feigned empathy or sympathy. Yeah that really makes one feel welcome.

@JBento

Arcadians don’t have non-Arcadian allies.

Code dive a bit and you''ll see that is not true in the strictest sense

Oh, it is even worse than that, as the Archangel route that is in progress has the mc forced to outright help one of Mireil’s former allies in Salantira…aka one of the people who helped her take everything from him.

So, yeah, Thalia has at least one non-Arcadian ally and its one of the vilest former henchmen of Mireil there is and they force the mc to help her. Someone he may finally want to kill for real and of course that is a person Arcadia is gonna force you to help. Fuck any sort of justice for the mc.

in progress code spoiler:

She is a seasoned combatant, one who served the old Grand Duke faithfully as a mage of the Osirian. And that faith has landed her and her household in dire straits after the war, when the Grand Duke’s faction were revoked of their powers by the dozens—and the countess herself had only hung onto her title by the skin of her teeth.

She had been a client of the Archangel, before the latter deemed her to be of insignificant informational value. The Pavillion’s doors ought to have been closed to her for the past month or so—and yet there she is despite it all, standing before you when the Archangel’s dogs should have kept her out.

In the meantime any of Yu’s more reasonable suggestions about gaining better allies who are not vile former henchwomen of Mireil’s are not welcome because god-Empress Thalia refuses to consider anything except her own crazy plan.

@No_This_Is_Patrick

doesn’t mean they’re crazy

Except that spoiler we’ve got says that in Eli’s ending it literally does, as it requires a high enough hidden madness stat to even be able to choose it, with probably no option to spare Saine and Ilya I guess cause the mc will be too mad for that, Yay!

Full text of the tumblr spoiler post on the Eli route

Big spoilers under the cut. I’m talking… huge . Endgame huge.

In one of the planned endgame routes, you will be able to kill the entirety of the core cast, bar Eli (who will reluctantly assist you). It’s a rather short route (and will be written to feel like a ‘bad end’), with very specific triggers–one of them being that your mage needs to consistently pick options that add to a hidden ‘madness’ stat post-resurrection. (emphasis mine)

So, yeah the author himself says that to even get to that route the mc needs to be basically completely insane. But hey, at least that is the time Eli will come around to genuinely being on the mc’s side again. How nice of them.

It is billed as a friggin’s bad end. While the mc deserves to be on their own side the only way that is actually gonna happen is for a short, unsatisfying and completely pointless bad end that requires the mc to go batshit insane.

The other options are to be a slave in Arcadia or to become a servant for Leon again. So mc never seems to get any real agency of their own or a way to work towards any personal goals they may have, not even in the completely pointless bad end as that requires them to be insane.

@JBento

It might actually not be possible to do that at all.

Then the mc is screwed no matter what is his life will remain unpleasant and painful.

@JBento

There’s literally three people in the entirety of history in the MC’s situation, and one of those is already dead.

There’s only one person in the mc’s situation the mc, as both Eli and Sister only have/had one passenger they are/were actually able to sustain without too much discomfort. For the mc the parasites are quite literally continuous and ongoing torture and now they’ve got yet another useless parasite tagging along with that Earthworm thing.

[No_This_Is_Patrick]

@idonotlikeusernames

It doesn’t seem to be a want…really the spoiler seemed to indicate that by that point the mc is completely crazy and then Eli thinks it’s a good idea to genuinely be on their side again, when the mc no longer cares for anything or anyone, including Eli.

Not really, the MC wanting to kill everyone doesn’t mean they’re crazy. Literally mostly everyone has done them dirty and they could want revenge. Also like everything else so far it would be a choice, not because they’re crazy.

[JBento]

@Sujan_Dhakal

be some people out there who are sympathetic to their plight and some of them might even be in high levels of power

Bold statement. Big, if true. Can you name one of them? Do you have anything to support this other than “wishful thinking”? Who would you 100% trust to not rat you out even under duress, because that’s exactly what it would take considering that much of New Arcadia’s safety rests on the fact that nobody knows they exist and that they’re floating directly above the first place anybody would look for them if they did?

@Sujan_Dhakal

usual strategy of extortion/bribery/whatever

This isn’t an ally, it’s a business partner. New Arcadia is already doing this. It’s the whole point of the Yutai assassination job: we kill this person for you, and you give us a gazillion Yutai dollars.

@Sujan_Dhakal

not willing to spread outside of their own group

Nobody outside their group cares.

@Sujan_Dhakal

ally with other people

There’s no people to ally with; Yutai and the Empire aren’t players at the table, and the other two are their literal genociders.

@Sujan_Dhakal

other peoples opinions might be

Other peoples opinions about Arcadians are, at best, “meh, I don’t care” and at worst “they should all be killed and/or enslaved.”

@Sujan_Dhakal

willing to violate traditions

I’m… not sure what these traditions are that you’re talking about?

[Sujan_Dhakal]

OK, it’s not traditions as much as it’s their mentality; Arcadia doesn’t just treat outsiders like they can’t be trusted, they actively distain them. Just because they don’t have the same magic system or the same bloodlines or whatever. And just as there isn’t enough information to my claim that there are people out there that might support Arcadia if given the chance, there also isn’t ever need evidence showing that there isn’t a single person out there who cares, either. We don’t know enough specific information about the higher-ups in those other nations to see if anyone cares enough. And even if they don’t care, there are probably other types of lines you can make like what Arcadia is currently doing except on a greater and more expanded level

[AirbornePenguin]

Option 3 could have been great as an evil route. I have realised this would happen when we saw the Arcadians first time, none of the sides are actually our side. So I wanted a route that mc is really feeling burned out after getting burned at stake. Not a pointless angst but the total abondenment of hope, virtue and belief in good. Everything is reduced to cold calculation, there is nothing mc wouldn’t do is it is necessary. The goal would be making a new society from scracth, or it’s total destruction because everything and everyone is flawed. If 90% of population needs to die, if slave labor is needed to do it, if mc needs to eat beating hearts of a hundred chieldren for a ritual… etc, it’s no problem. It’s exteremely unlilely to happen but would have been great.

[JBento]

There’s a total of four nations we know of. The Empire are xenophobic imperialists, so they’re not on anyone’s side. Yutai is irrelevant as a political actor. The entirety of Param was enslaving Arcadians a couple of years ago. The king of Param, who has absolute power in Param, upon finding out that someone unleashed a bioweapon on Arcadians, immediately said that they shouldn’t punish the dude much. Salantira was being run by a hidden Arcadian from the shadows, and even then all the Arcadians managed to nab was one city, and the only reason they risked pushed for even that much was because New Arcadia is floating directly above that city. When the Jovian Church found out that someone was healing Arcadians during the previous moonvein plague, their immediate response was to inquisition itself to try to find out who’d let the secret of thaumic healing out. Aaaaand that’s everyone.

@Sujan_Dhakal

actively distain them

I too would disdain someone whose response to me being an Arcadian would be either enslavement or genocide. It’s the sort of thing a fellow takes personally, you might say.

@Sujan_Dhakal

f you want to make inroads, you need people to at least tolerate you, if not trust you, or be on your side

The point is that there’s nobody to make inroads WITH; anybody that has any sway on the matter is, demonstrably, against Arcadians. Not just “I don’t like you” against, but “genocide and enslave you” against.

EDIT: Also, my man, “you have to be nice and polite if you want to be accorded the shred of humanity that it takes to not be considered chattel” might be the worst take I’ve heard all month, and let me tell you, it’s facing stiff competition.

[Vofademp]

Idk about rebuilding the entire current society, but yeah it sure would be cool if the only “choose your own side” path wasn’t just a very short “bad ending” were you just kill the other characters and that’s it.

[Sujan_Dhakal]

Distaining them is also just not practical; if you want to make inroads, you need people to at least tolerate you, if not trust you, or be on your side, but you can’t do that when you’re acting all high and mighty

[PastelSweetss]

I think everyone is taking the bad end a bit too much as ‘the only ending that’s not arcadia / param’. It’s only one of the planned endgame routes, and never confirmed as the only route where we strike out on our own!