Kayah and Sylvie are the protectors of Livia Forest, but one day, the Gravehart family kidnaps the duo and their nymph citizens in order to drain their energy. While escaping Gravehart Manor, the party finds an imprisoned angel, Helen, who has no memories of how she was captured in the first place. The party must stop the Graveharts' kidnapping and sacrifice scheme in order to bring peace back to the continent of Belume and discover Helen's missing past.
A sequel, Absinthia, was released in 2023.
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This work contains examples of:
- Amnesiac Hero: After the party rescues Helen from the Graveharts, she finds that she has none of her memories, thanks to Lilith. She's actually an angelic reincarnation of the goddess Helena.
- And the Adventure Continues: In the ending, Kayah, Helen, and Achilles travel to the surface in order to stop Lilith, who survived the Final Boss fight.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: The rich and powerful Gravehart family kidnaps people to drain their energy and the current Primrose patriarch helped them by selling the poor of Port Khalim, only to go into hiding in Zamaste to avoid repercussions.
- The Atoner: After the party wins the third arena bout, Ash decides to travel with Sera and help the people of Belume in order to atone for being complicit in his father's kidnapping and sacrifice scheme. In the ending, Matthias requests him to stand guard over the Eye of Destruction, since Belume will plummet to the surface if the artifact is disturbed.
- Boring, but Practical: Kayah has average magic stats while having cost-efficient non-elemental spells. While she won't deal the most AOE damage, she's still reliable when facing enemy groups with multiple elemental resistances.
- Broken Pedestal: Gail is upset to learn that his father sold the poor of Port Khalim to the Graveharts, which is the kind of behavior his ancestor Uno would frown upon. Matthias called their father out for this crime, only for their parents to flee to Zamaste to avoid consequences.
- Cain and Abel: Helen is an angel and the sister of Lilth. At the start of the game, Lilith drained Helen of most of her energy in order to gain the power to destroy the world. The only reason she doesn't immediately destroy the world is because she wants to give Helen a false sense of hope in stopping her. Right before the final battle, Lilith reveals that she's jealous of how Helen was born with free will and was allowed to have a fulfilling life while the former was made into a puppet of an evil deity.
- Combat Medic:
- Kayah uses Magic Music to heal her allies, but is also a powerful physical attacker with her war horn.
- Helen is a heavily armored fighter who also has the cleric skillset from previous games.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Kayah was originally from Lestonia, but left because of harassment from homophobes. Even outside of her home, she experienced homophobia until she settled down in Livia. As a result, she doesn't trust strangers easily, since she wonders if they'll judge her.
- Demonic Possession: When the party returns to Gravehart Manor, Lilith takes control of Edgar's body and mutates him.
- Egopolis: Edgar Gravehart built Hart City using the wealth he accumulated through robot labor and specifically chooses a name that resembles his last name. While it looks like a prosperous city on the surface, underground is the seedier part of town. Additionally, escorts are kidnapped for Edgar's human sacrifice scheme to revive his wife, since he knows that most of the city won't care if they disappear.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas:
- Ash Gravehart is angered when Matthias fails to sufficiently clean his mother's statue, and he follows his father's kidnapping scheme in order to revive her.
- Achilles turns out to be spying on the Graveharts on behalf of his mother, Silnastra. He also risks staying behind in the final dungeon to witness her Heroic Sacrifice, despite the danger this places him in.
- Faking the Dead: Ruth and Gwen supposedly pulled a Heroic Sacrifice to save their party from the self-destructing Eye of Destruction. After the fourth arena bout, the Halonian Knight team reveals that Ruth and Gwen actually survived, but never told anyone so they could retire from fighting.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Lilith explains that she spent nearly a century with no will of her own and was forced to watch as she couldn't control her own body. Even after gaining full control of herself, she absorbs the lifeforce of many people and threatens to crash the continent of Belume, all because she's jealous that Helen was born free. The party calls her out on how petty her motivation is. Even Sylvie, who despises humans, considers this an act of Misplaced Retribution against the people of Belume.
- Graceful Loser: The boss of the Depths is Silnastra, who wants Malady's Grimoire. When the party defeats her, she relents and lets them keep the book while maintaining their alliance against Lilth.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Lilith was born with her free will suppressed and spent years slowly gaining control of herself. As such, she's incredibly jealous of Helen for being born with free will. Right before the final boss battle, she admits that she doesn't care about her creator's plan to destroy humanity as much as making Helen suffer.
- He Knows Too Much: Played with. Kayah's previous girlfriend, Vanessa, originally fled to Livia because she learned that Edgar Gravehart was secretly sacrificing people. She tried to leave Livia temporarily in order to get stuff from her house, but the Graveharts found her and killed her offscreen, though they likely would have killed her even if she didn't discover their plans for the sake of harvesting energy.
- Heel–Face Turn: When Achilles and Shujin kidnap Sera Gravehart, Ash Gravehart turns on his father in order to save Sera, since he didn't think his faction would go as far as to use his sister as a hostage.
- Hero Antagonist: The party attacks the first boss, Gail, for being an intruder in Livia Woods. He's actually a ninja on a mission to investigate the Graveharts for kidnapping. Later, he frees the party from the Gravehart Dungeon and joins them.
- Heroic Lineage:
- Gail and Matthias Primrose are descended from Uno, Malady, Dylan, and the Zamaste royal family.
- Vagrant, the manager of the arena, is Stray's grandson.
- Almost everyone in the fourth arena rival team is descended from someone from the previous games. Alia is the great-granddaughter of Alduin, Minerva is the great-granddaughter of Meredith, and Guinevere is the great-granddaughter of Gwen. Played with in Ruthea's case, since she was adopted into Ruth and Gwen's family.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- Subverted with Ruth and Gwen, who faked their deaths while stopping Morgoth's Eye of Destruction.
- This is played straight with Silnastra aka Lissandra, who gives her life to stabilize the Eye of Destruction, preventing the continent of Belume from crashing into the planet below.
- I Just Want to Be Free: Right before her Final Boss fight, Lilith laments how she spent nearly a century as a puppet of an evil deity and how she envies Helen for being able to forge her own path in life.
- Love Makes You Evil: Edgar and Ash Gravehart kidnap people and steal their energy in order to revive their matriarch, Priscilla.
- The Mole: After the midpoint of the game, Achilles reveals that he was working for the witch, Silnastra, all along and was working for the Graveharts in order to spy on Lilith.
- More Despicable Minion: While the Graveharts are driven by grief over their matriarch's death, their hired Mad Scientist, Shujin, is a selfish opportunist who only works for them for money. When Shujin discovers the futuristic technology of Scitech, he seeks to use that technology to backstab the Graveharts and rule the world. Once he joins Lilith, he's a downplayed version of this trope to her, since she lived through the trauma of being controlled by an evil deity while Shujin has no sympathetic backstory whatsoever.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Played with. According to a book written by Stray, Lissandra attempted to steal the Eye of Destruction after the battle with Morgoth, presumably to use it against Lilith's master. This caused the Eye to self-destruct, leading to the rest of the team losing whatever little trust they had in her and monitoring until she mysteriously vanished. In the Depths, Silnastra/Lissandra claims the Eye was set to explode upon Morgoth's defeat, meaning she wasn't entirely to blame.
- Powers as Programs: Sylvie can equip up to two enemy essences to gain their skills.
- Reformed, but Not Tamed: Lissandra may have left the Drakon Cult, but the original party considered her a Wild Card who is still amoral in pursuing her own goals. She tried to steal the Eye of Destruction behind their backs, so they took Hermes's staff from her and sealed it away. When she resurfaces as Silnastra, she helps the party restore Helen's consciousness in exchange for them getting the staff back for her.
- Reincarnation: Helen is the reincarnation of Helena, one of the twin deities of the world of Ambrose.
- Revenge Before Reason: Lissandra is determined to avenge her brother Hermes at any cost and is power-hungry as a result. She nearly gets the entire party killed when she recklessly tries to steal the Eye of Destruction. She claims that the Eye was set to explode no matter what, but she's still ruthless in her quest to kill Lilith, to the point where she attacks the party in order to Malady's Grimoire for herself.
- The Starscream: Shujin discovered the Scitech dungeon from the previous game under the Gravehart Manor, but he kept its contents a secret because he wanted to use the technologyh there to betray the Graveharts and take over the world. When he's encountered in the Neo Hellgate, he plans to use his new demonic powers to upstage Lilith too.
- Superboss: In the Depths, the party faces Silnastra, who wants to take Malady's tome from the party. She has many powerful dark-elemental spells, instant death spells, and the ability to summon weaker copies of Strife, making her more difficult than Lilith. Fittingly, she shows up in the final battle to weaken Lilith.
- Took a Level in Badass: Silnastra is actually Lissandra, who wasn't portrayed as a particularly strong fighter in the previous game. Even when she joined the party, she was at the exact same power level as Hermes. In this game, Silnastra is a powerful boss and can summon weaker copies of Strife.
- Unwitting Pawn: Edgar Gravehart works with Lilith in exchange for the latter reviving his wife, but Lilith never intended to uphold her end of the bargain at all. She just wanted to drain the energy of living beings, including her sister Helen.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Since the Gravehart family built the prosperous Hart City, the citizens believe them to be benevolent aristocrats. Unfortunately, the Graveharts are actually kidnapping people to drain their energy.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: By the time the party meets Edgar Gravehart, the one spearheading the kidnappings and energy drainings, Lilith transforms him into a mindless monster.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- When the party learns that Achilles joined the Graveharts in order to spy on Lilith, they point out that he was still complicit in kidnapping people and did nothing to slow down Lilith's plans. He admits that they have a point, but he doesn't seem to feel bad about it, since he's fully devoted to following his mother's orders.
- Ruthea, Alla, Guinevere, and Minerva call out Vagrant for abandoning his duties as a king to run an arena.
- White Sheep: Sera Gravehart disagreed with her father and brother's plan to sacrifice people to resurrect their matriarch, resulting in her living in hiding in the Deadwood. Once she's discovered, she decides to help the party fight her family.
