Punishing the World
Punishing the WorldDialogue
???: Now let the world become abyss.
???: Hearken to me, my king! Bear witness to the dissolution of a world bereft of you!
???: Your Majesty... King Alberius.
Cleo: This mana fount is ruined, too. I sense no power in it whatsoever.
The Prince: This is the third mana fount that we've found destroyed here in Alberia. Who is doing this, and why?
Cleo: The world would be unmade without mana; I can think of no explanation but that they seek to throw the world into disarray.
The Prince: We'll be in dire straits if this keeps up. I'm going to take a look over there, Cleo. You mind checking out this area?
Cleo: Be ever alert, Euden.
Cleo: One could not make a mana fount wither without a considerable degree of power. A fiend, perhaps? A magical weapon?
Cleo: ...Or a dragon.
???: Ah. You are Cleo.
Cleo: Who's there?!
???: It has been some time, Cleo, yet your visage is unchanged.
Cleo: You! I know you!
???: And I you, for you are she who abandoned her king to live on in a world bereft of him!
Cleo: Tartarus!
Tartarus: Come, Cleo. Come and accept your punishment for remaining in this world.
Cleo: Aaaaaaaaah!
The Prince: Cleo! Are you okay?!
Cleo: Euden! Y-yes, but...
Tartarus: Ah, so this one is the new sacrifice for peace—it is a role well-suited for a puppet ornamented in lies.
Tartarus: But you will not get to fulfill even that role. Once I sever the mana from this land, there will be nothing left for you to stake your life for.
Cleo: Then YOU are the one who has been destroying the mana founts, Tartarus!
The Prince: Do you know this person, Cleo?
Cleo: One might have called us allies, once.
Cleo: He is one of the dragons who fought alongside King Alberius in the Second War of Binding three centuries ago...
Cleo: He is Tartarus, the Abyssalwyrm!
The Prince: So you swore a pact with Alberius? In that case, why are you going around destroying the mana founts?!
Tartarus: Is it not apparent? I seek the ruination of the Kingdom of Alberia.
Cleo: But why would a loyal servant of Alberius destroy the kingdom he so loved?
Tartarus: The kingdom he "loved"? ...Don't make me laugh.
Cleo: What?
Tartarus: My reason for destruction is revenge. Nothing more or less.
Tartarus: The kingdom is guilty of his murder, and I shall never be able to quell his regrets if I do not see it razed to ash and bone.
Cleo: Murder? What are you talking about?! The king gave his all and last for Alberia!
Tartarus: Which is why I name it murderer.
Tartarus: This kingdom chose the path of sacrifice. One life for the world, and for all who live with it—human, dragon, and other.
Tartarus: They killed the king. YOU killed the king. With my own eyes, I watched it happen.
Tartarus: I watched as the king suffered the excruciating pain that is the price of the Blood Casket—the ritual for sealing away the Other—giving of his life for others.
Cleo: I never heard a word of any of this from His Majesty...
Tartarus: He did not wish for his people to harbor unease in regards to his duty, as it called for him to surrender his own life.
Cleo: That cannot be! It was not duty alone which drove him to fight!
Cleo: He was a kind man! He fought for his ideals of justice, to protect his people!
Tartarus: Justice? JUSTICE? Aaaah ha ha ha!
Tartarus: Do you know what I have hated most these past three hundred years, Cleo? The exact "justice" of which you speak.
Tartarus: He was worshipped as a hero—and thus forced to push the boulder of justice up a mountain of war and battle!
Tartarus: All voices cried out to name him hero, and so he fashioned himself into the fulcrum upon which the world turned toward peace.
Cleo: Y-yes, it's true that we all counted on King Alberius a great deal—perhaps even too much—but we never... I mean...
Tartarus: Thus is justice a breeding ground for diseased philosophies that drive one to cast aside their life for the sake of others.
Tartarus: The innocence of bystanders takes all from those who offer themselves up entire— and a world that valorizes such a thing is a world gone awry.
Tartarus: Thus will I bring unto that world a total annihilation—of humans, dragons, and the very land itself! I will ruin the rotted world that so values this "justice"!
Tartarus: Day after day, you trample upon the land where our king passed without a care in your head! Both of you are guilty of this.
Cleo: ...Very well, Tartarus.
Cleo: If you would revenge yourself upon all in this land, I will protect them to my last.
Cleo: For to protect the world my king sought to save is to protect his very soul itself!
Tartarus: Fool... FOOL! How unbelievable that you cannot distinguish between that which one has wished for and that which one was FORCED to make his wish!
Tartarus: I shall bring down my hammer upon this world that forces the sacrifice of a king, and I shall bring down my hammer upon the peace it so desperately craves!
Tartarus: Feral Shroud! Expand!
The Prince: You're with Agito!
Tartarus: Indeed, we are the jaws of destruction left unto this world.
Tartarus: We are AGITO!
Tartarus: O king, I swear to you now that I shall see your soul liberated from this world. King Alberius, be my aegis!
