Jump 412: Drakengard

Jump #412: Drakengard
>King of Swords: Perfect clarity of thought, directness of action, and eloquence of speech.
>Age: 21
>Location: Free Choice (Drakengard 2)
>Identity: Wanderer
>A Dark Commentary (Free, Wanderer)
I think this is the third perk I have that comments or narrates on what I'm doing. I feel like my jumps are becoming some sort of weird MST3k-esque thing, almost.
>According To My Records (700, Wanderer)
To be fair I'm halfway immune to paradoxes anyway, now this just means that if someone actually goes back in time and kills me, I keep existing anyway because screw those guys.
>Longevity (600)
Ehhh, why not?
>Voice Change (550)
Again, why not? Should be amusing.
>Intoner (150)
I haven't really done a lot of upgrading to the universal magic system in a while, but if you can apply music to trigger spells, that could be useful for atmosphere I suppose.
>Musical Instrument (50)
Truly it is the king of all woodwinds; what can compare to a yew kazoo?
>Armor (100)
Never hurts to have a decent set of armor that I don't actually have to bother with maintaining.

So, I hear that Nowe was the worst protagonist ever. And so I cursed him with common sense. How, you might ask? Well, I can lend perks to people. And I have common sense perks. So I gave him a common sense perk (thank you, Dan Vs), a plot-perception perk (thank you, Terra Formars), and random intelligence and luck perks. And then I sat back to watch the hilarity.

The result was a fun-filled romp and a COMPLETE destruction of the 'JRPG hero' trope. Nowe was almost poisoned by his superior? Nowe played it off, then later ambushed him, chopped off his arm, then proceeded to pick up his arm and beat him unconscious with it before going AWOL. Nowe realizes seals siphon peoples' life force? He makes the reasoned decision that destroying them would free a greater evil because DESTROYING THEM WOULD PROBABLY KILL LITERALLY EVERYONE. At least in the worst case scenario.

You know what works better than removing the seals? Changing them so they work a little differently.

Of course it doesn't help anything that butterflies flapped their wings and Caim freed Angelus, but since Nowe has not been an utterly useless tit and has actually been finding every expert of the arcane that he can, among other things. And of course there's a prophecy in play, because even if he's doing intelligent things and finding loopholes and temporarily sealing Angelus in a bastardized seal that won't last a decade, and looking beyond just Legna's manipulations as they gradually become evident, thanks to being intelligent enough to not murder Caim when he finally met him and instead working together with him.

Thanks to the power of plot and or luck, Angelus was freed from the seal and somehow she was restored to a vague semblance of sanity. Seems that temporary seal was good for something after all. In the end, though... Angel was freed because new seals were established, once Nowe seized control of the knights and set them to the task. Instead of needing a living sacrifice at the core or the life essence of people near them, they drew on the whole of the world, somehow. Seven monolithic stone circles, strategically placed, sealing the world from the interference of the gods.

When Manah tried to destroy those as well, Nowe tried to talk her out of it, before realizing that her reasons for doing as she did continued to devolve over the course of their conversation. She realized she nearly destroyed the world, she had a terrible breakdown over it, and yet she still tried to do it AGAIN. When she tried to use force, both Caim and Nowe slew her.

Honestly, while it's a lot different from the other three endings, I'm not sure I'm a fan of Ending D either.

But at least I have a blue yew kazoo. Blew true, too, to accrue a new breakthrough.

(I'm not sorry. We had it coming.)