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Going to look at wiki pages for the Highlands SDs I've done already. See if there's a decipher.

...Yeah, there's not. I notice 'Kalkalrah' in the page for the Ragni Stela, which is... prior used.

This is kind of an obtuse check to get lore. Where are we supposed to learn a conlang? Cool idea, but is it practical? I probably won't know what any of this means until months in the future, when meandering lorists get around to filling the wiki pages.

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Okay, I've gone literally everywhere in the Highlands and I have not gotten Near to the A People's Sovereign SD. Where is it??? It's marked as Highlands??

 

Okay. Let's do it. Apotheosis.

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Stopwatch time.

 

This opening segment in Hyloch is... iffy. Really weird barriers and bad walls, missing interior on the newspaper store, etc. It's very short. Why have it? Also, the guard mobs interfere with the cutscenes, the bosses clip through the Slay walls, and Zeph's appearance is weird (it's hard to follow him moving around, and both him and Rex vanish immediately because they don't appear in fights).

The Queen references the big stump. I remember that. Her affection for Auburn is odd considering that she completely destroyed it that one time. What was it with that tree? She implies its fruit somehow empowered the rebels. And, failing in PR, she implies she thinks ideals of Love and Family are Baaad. Queen!! You know you need to promote families in a fascist state! It's very strange that she rants at us in front of an entire crowd. I bet that in about five seconds that'll be a plot point, since the propagandists are here.

...Wait. Is Zhiraok about to rebel? I theorised he'd be a turncoat way back when he was - important, not just a side character, but... I mean, now's the time. The rebellious member of the undervillain squad usually turns like, midpoint or endpoint, right?

Oh my god he is. I was right. My forgotten theory was correct. He's so sick of their incompetence, their disregard for him, and of the Queen's cavalier brutality that he's switching sides to protect His District. And because his blessing is time control, they can't catch him! He thinks, he acts, he organises so fast, he's dangerous as a rebel. He's an ideal leader! He can mobilise basically a whole district, both morally and logistically, and the latter at superhuman speed...

She is going to the dam with Tasim - another flood. Duh. Where does she get the water? Majin is getting his expected fight against us, in which we'll kill him, and because it's only Zhiraok with the resurrective immortality that I thought all Sovereigns had (back when I only knew Zhiraok), Majin will stay dead.

What are our last words? These are all good options. Except #2. #4 and #1 are the best. I think I'll take #1 - by being flippant and self-assured, we maximally insult him by treating him like he's not important, just a promise to fulfill. (The cutscene audience is poorly put-together; they don't return to an idle state after first turning around and mumbling to each other, so they look weird and frozen.)

Majin's tossed us... where? Is this real space, or a facsimile? He's clearly Cosmic-deranged, but it's hard to tell exactly how deranged - he might be fully corrupted at this point, with all of his flamboyance and assorted quirkiness being Cosmic madness, or it might be a subtle, nearly non-present effect, with those quirks being Just Majin.

Okay, he killed me immediately. I was distracted by itches and got oneshot by his charge attack. I'm not a good build for Majin, since almost all of my damage is Rainbow, but I have no idea how strong his elemental defenses are and I'm not inclined to get a full build change just to deal with one ludicrously high-health boss. I'll just chug a suite of potions, since I started collecting them.

Died at 4.3m. What a slog. Somehow Gikyo was worse, but it just... it just goes on forever. Why bother? Am I really going to build switch over this? Arduous, flow-breaking. You have to research, find items, buy items, powder them I guess... why bother? I'll just go in again with Morph and Cascade (turns out that Slow weapon I was recommended has lower DPS than Cascade, so there's no point using it).

 

Comet Crashing Crescendo is completely ridiculous. The comets nearly oneshot me, and how am I supposed to dodge them?

Someone has recommended a "Liffleaf Set" or a "Wynnbuilder Github dot Io Hint To Do It Yourself" or a "I Can Just Kill Him For You". I'll look at the Liffleaf stuff if I lose too much.

Majin is just. Ridiculous. Why is he like this?

Okay. Whatever. Liffmail. Two and a half LE. It's fine. I have sixteen stx. It's a boost to my health. Not entirely clear on what all the benefits here are, but seems to be Earth-weighted rainbow with... idk. Spellspam. I'm not spellspammer. My only spell to spam is Ice Snake.

And died again. Ugh. This thing reduces my elemental defense by 40%. Does that matter? Which IDs are fake and which are real? The DPS meter is fake. Are elemental defenses fake?

Died again... I've died too many times. Was the difference really those five potions I had?

Okay, knocked off two million health and then died. I am sick of this. I am going to give up. I am going to radio the Party Finder for help. Someone will undoubtedly slay Majin.

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This is really ruining my plans for today. I blocked out time under the assumption that I was going to be done with Apotheosis around 6 or 7. And here is Majin Thalas, here to spit in my face for not wanting to build super hard. Here is Majin Thalas, the man who is impossible to fight. Here I am, twiddling my thumbs. Nobody has joined the pfinder.

 

Okay someone showed up, I think a Riftwalker, and melted him. I can finally get going.

It seems like some of Majin's wild power hunger and flamboyance is indeed Cosmic mania overtaking him.

...he exploded.

I'm going to say to Zeph that Majin Thalas is dead. Passive voice. I mean, pseudocanonically, I'm not actually the one who did it, I just sat on a bench in Hyloch and scrolled Discord while waiting for someone to show up and kill him, because I wasn't going to go to the massive effort of rebuilding for the fight.

I suspect the dam boss will be Tasim, not the Queen. We've met him on dams and bridges before, and this is the middle of the quest.

Tasim apparently knows something of Two's personality. She, apparently, would be mad if the Auburn Forest was flooded again. Where does she come from? Is she related to the slaughtered Cursed revolt that was the subject of one SD?

The Queen's furious. Nothing she's thrown at us has worked. But she's reacting with anger - not fear. She's blaming her Sovereigns for incompetence - not being concerned about the fact that one fighter killed Majin, Gikyo, and twice Zhiraok. Meanwhile, two of her Sovereigns are rebelling, a third is willing to throw her under the bus, and the only remaining fighter for her is new and, probably, not very strong. Her empire is collapsing, but she refuses to see it, preferring instead to try to flex power she no longer has. And she refuses to see us. (Although, to be fair, some of the Extraordinary Power I often hype the player up with is non-diegetic, given that 'immunity to all fights that they did not start' is a purely extracanonically, medium-mandated ability.)

Ah, I missed a dialogue cue! Right during the dialogue before fighting Tasim. Luckily, I died, so I can retake it.

Right, he pulled out a phase change and obliterated me. Ugh. I don't have many skill potions.

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I think one of the reasons these bosses are a problem is that they just don't have large arenas. Especially Tasim. My combat style abuses Teleport randomly, and I can't really do that in such a narrow space. (I hated fighting Gikyo in part because of all of the arena problems.)

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I think I figured out where A People's Sovereign is supposed to be... but Nawild doesn't respond to my dye. I don't think this area works.

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Oh, no, I just need others.

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Okay, the discovery is either bugged or very poorly written. I have no idea what this 'glacier' is and attacking the cave does nothing.

Tasim is also completely unmanageable, so I guess I do have to go out of my way and get a brand new build. Waste of my time.

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Yeah I'll just throw in the towel for today. I allotted three hours to finish this quest, three hours is up, I've gotten like half of it.