fault milestone two is a 2015 kinetic novel developed by ALICE IN DISSONANCE, and is the sequel to their 2013 kinetic novel fault - milestone one. Picking up where the ending of the first game left off, Ritona, Selphine, and their new friend Rune leave the Outer-Pole, though a confrontation with the self-proclaimed goddess Melano awakens a dark side to Selphine's royal bloodline and leaves Ritona with a debilitating affliction. Arriving in the coastal town of Port Sasary, the trio encounters a young boy named Sol who offers to guide them, though Ritona is suspicious he may have ulterior motives for helping them.
After the scope of the game grew outside what the developers originally intended, it was announced that fault milestone two will be split into two parts, fault - milestone two side:above and fault - milestone two side: below. side:above was released in Japan on August 16, 2015, and the English version was released on
Steam on September 8, 2015. A Nintendo Switch version was released on December 3, 2020.
NOTE: As this is a direct continuation of fault - milestone one, there will be untagged spoilers for it here.
fault milestone two provides examples of the following tropes:
- Alas, Poor Villain: Selphine discovers that the reason the Pharmacist became a crime lord was because he's terminally ill and desperate to buy his way into Neo Sasary and live in the Vita Stream, making him as much a victim of Seris' oppression and prejudice as Sol and Mil are. However, Selphine notes this doesn't excuse his cruel exploitation of the twins—especially since Mil could have been cured had she received proper treatment—or having people murdered, and she kills him herself to prevent Sol from learning the truth and being crushed by grief.
- Ambiguously Gay: Ritona is strongly implied to have a crush on Rune. After noticing Rune sleeping in a chair by her bedside, Ritona notes how beautiful she is, becoming very flustered when Rune abruptly wakes up as Ritona is staring at her chest and crotch while wondering exactly how anatomically correct she is. Additionally, when Rune is brainstorming a nickname for Ritona earlier in the game and suggests "Ritzy", Ritona blushes and states that she'd rather Rune "stick to Ritona."
- Asshole Victim: The Pharmacist is a member of the Guild, effectively a crime syndicate that monopolizes the production and sale of medicine, charges ridiculous prices, and arbitrarily increases them for no reason. This forces Sol, who needs medicine to save his twin sister Mil's life, to rob people. When Selphine-Rhegan and Rune encourage Sol and Mil to flout their restrictions, the Pharmacist shows up with a group of thugs and declares his intent to have the twins beaten to death (which even the other guild members think is going too far), and Selphine and Rune raped and sold into prostitution. When Selphine-Rhegan and Rune are unintimidated, the Pharmacist sics Ruckle — a cannibalistic serial killer with a preference for the wombs of young women — on them... which leads to Rune cutting lose and effortlessly defeating him. Discovering that the Pharmacist has been scamming the twins with pain-killers and placebos all along and that Mil could have been saved had he given them the proper medicine, Selphine murders him herself to spare Sol the trauma of learning the truth.
- Bait-and-Switch: The entire scene of Sol beating the pharmacist nearly to death and Rune's inner thoughts on the matter are all seen through Selphine-Rhegan's eyes via Clairvoyance.
- Beware the Nice Ones: During the finale Selphine's eyes switch back from Rhegan's multiple times during the CG, with her being even more enraged than her ancestor at The Reveal. It's deliberately left ambiguous, but her desire to see him suffer nearly wins out until her clairvoyance powers how her how much it would hurt her friends if she told the truth of what she saw and didn't kill the person responsible herself, which is also implied to be primarily Selphine's own choice and not Rhegan's influence. Unfortunately, this also leads to the These Hands Have Killed moment in the ending.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
- Zig-zagged with Selphine. Her more ruthless personality is a consequence of the combination of her lineage and the defense mechanism that comes with Path-Down.note However, she is still very much aware of herself while in that state. Once she returns to normal, she has a brief Heroic BSoD moment from the experience.
- Played straight with Sol, who turns out to be exactly the kind of amoral thief that Ritona suspected, showing no hesitation or remorse at threatening to have Ritona killed or leaving three outsiders stranded with no money in a foreign country. Although he is desperate for money to keep his ailing sister alive, which gives him a sympathetic cause.
- Brutal Honesty: Selphine-Rhegan doesn't mince words, outright throwing the twins' diminished lifespans in their faces and insulting their country's economic structure. She's not completely heartless though, and chastises herself for going too far. In the finale as a bit of irony, Selphine hiding the truth to protect her friends ends with her killing another human being.
- Bullet Catch: Rune catches an arrow just before it hits Selphine in the head, and in the final confrontation catches a poisoned throwing dagger aimed at Selphine — with her back turned — and then proceeds to casually embed it several feet into the ground.
- Cast from Lifespan: When Rune asks why Selphine is forbidden to use manakravte, it's revealed that doing so comes at the expense of the user's lifespan. Under Rhegan's influence, Selphine proceeds to cast several manakravte, to Rune's shock and concern.
- Chekhov's Gun: The transceiver Rudo gave Ritona in Fault Milestone one. It's mentioned a couple of times in the beginning, then forgotten until used later in the story.
- Connected All Along: Mil spends much of her time reading diary entries from a person claiming to be living in a top-secret medical facility in the Vita Stream, assuming they're works of fiction. It turns out that these diary entries are written by Paige, who Ritona becomes the roommate of after being confined in the Vita Domain, but Selphine and Rune fail to figure this out.
- Cooldown Hug: One from Mil to Sol and another from Rune to Selphine.
- Deadpan Snarker: While not isolated to just fault milestone two, Ritona is a textbook example of this. Upon waking up in her room in the Neo Sasary Medical Facility, she asks her roommate, Paige, about how long she was unconscious. Paige is uncooperative, remarking that it was incredibly rude not introduce yourself in your native language. Cue Ritona snarking that she "should have roused herself from her comatose state" to introduce herself properly.
- Death Glare:
- Selphine-Rhegan spends most of the episode sporting a cold glare, whenever she's not sporting an equally chilling smile instead — most prominently when bashing the pharmacist's head into his own desk.
- Rune sports a furious expression, complete with Glowing Eyes of Doom, when Ruckle tries to incapacitate Selphine with a poisoned throwing knife in order to sell them into prostitution and/or mutilate and cannibalize their bodies.
- Selphine herself manages a horrific one in the finale when her original personality starts to reemerge screaming in rage while seeing Sol and Mil's home and crops burn and reading the pharmacist's mind in the finale.
- Delicate and Sickly:
- Mil has a disease known as "the invisible noose", which is caused by poor mana flow within the body. Later on, it is revealed that Mil could have been cured if it wasn't for the pharmacist swindling Sol by only giving him a pain relief drug instead of the proper treatment. Because of this, Mil inevitably dies some time after the events of side:above as shown in the credits due to her symptoms having progressed past the point of no return.
- Ritona develops a severely debilitating condition after Selphine-Rhegan commands her to use a powerful manakravte spell against Melano, overtaxing her already-depleted mana supplies, and is eventually sequestered in the Vita Domain for treatment.
- Paige is implied to be ill as well, as she resides within the Vita Domain and more or less becomes Ritona's roommate.
- Demonic Possession: Despite the stated facts about Empress Syndrome, it very much appears like this.
- Despair Event Horizon: Discussed by Rune and Selphine-Rhegan as Sol's mental condition deteriorates. Rhegan manages to snap him out of it with a harsh talking-to.
- Everybody Has Standards: Queen Rhegan was renowned for her brutality and ruthlessness, and while channeling her Selphine doesn't have any problems with either ordering others to or personally taking hostages, physically assaulting people, threatening to kill somebody's loved ones, or planning out dine and dashes if it means accomplishing her goals; but even she's disgusted with the pharmacist attempting to sell recreational drugs to minors and purposely not treating Mil's illness in the name of making money. It's implied that some of her empathy and sense of justice may be coming from her merge with Selphine's personality, as her manifestation is noted to be mild.
- Evolving Title Screen:
- As part of the The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You scene, after Melano nukes the Outer Pole the game crashes and reboots with the Title Screen showing Melano standing in a smouldering crater, the only option available being "Undo".
- After completing the story for the first time, it changes to a shot of an older Sol watching over some kids that are helping tend his field. It can be changed back to its original image at any time.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Selphine helps Rune change from Twin Tails to a single ponytail.
- Eye Colour Change: While both Selphine and Rhegan have blue irises, Selphine's irises are deep blue to emphasize her cheerful exuberance while Rhegan's are Icy Blue Eyes to emphasize her cold and ruthless personality. During her final grapple with the pharmacist when she finds out the truth they switch back and forth, symbolizing that the rage and killing intent is Selphine's own and not born from Rhegan.
- Fission Mailed: Ritona, Selphine, and Rune's encounter with Melano ends with the three of them dead and the Outer-Pole completely decimated by a Magic Nuke spell. The game then "crashes", only for it to start up again with a different main menu screen that has "Undo" as the only option, showing Melano breaking the fourth wall by smirking at the player while standing in the middle of the crater.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Very early on, one of the antagonists, Melano, confronts the group and demonstrates her devastating powers by blowing up the Outer Pole. Visions of the carnage is followed by the game appearing to crash and closing altogether. Upon re-launching, Melano is now the centerpiece of the main menu, staring right at the player and the only option is to "Undo" what she has just done. First time players are also awarded the achievement: "Are you listening now?"
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: When Rune is enraged at the Guild trying to kill Sol and Mil, and for planning to sell Selphine and herself into prostitution, her sclera glow blue and the pupils and the camera-lens segments in her irises glow red like they did when she was trying to intimidate Ritona in the first game.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Selphine-Rhegan makes it very clear that the group is in such a dire situation that they don't have the luxury of taking the moral high ground after Ritona disappears if they want to make it back home. As such, she is going to do anything it takes to accomplish her goals, be it taking hostages, committing violence, or dine and dashing.
- Idiot Ball: Subverted by Ritona, who immediately suspects Sol as having an ulterior motive, takes steps to avoid having Sol take the group's money, lures him into a trap to reveal his true intentions, and uses deductive reasoning to call Sol's bluff about having nearby allies to force her to surrender. She would have had Sol entirely at her mercy if it weren't for Sol using manakravte, something that no one saw coming.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Ruckle, one of the Guild's enforcers, is a cannibalistic serial killer with a preference for carving out the wombs of young women and eating them — which he threatens to do to Selphine and Rune.
- Impressed by the Civilian: Selphine — in a Split-Personality Merge with Rhegan, a tyrannical queen renowned for her ruthless brutality — is impressed when Mil almost headshots her with a crossbow when she enters the cabin where Mil and her brother Sol have been living, complementing her split-second willingness to kill an intruder and direct defiance of her despite being a glorified hostage, especially since Mil is terminally ill and bedridden.
- It's All About Me: The Pharmacist's motive for supplying fake medicine ultimately boils down to this.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Sol turns out to be exactly the sort of person Ritona suspects him of being, though it's revealed he's trying to provide for his terminally ill twin sister.
- Selphine-Rhegan does show compassion later on, although it's unclear whether said compassion is coming from Rhegan's personality or if Selphine's personality was bleeding in while Empress Syndrome was still in effect. Rhegan comments that Selphine's personality would slowly reassert itself over time, and it's later noted by Rupika Greas that Rhegan's presence in the Split-Personality Merge is mild.
- Language Barrier:
- While Ritona and Selphine don't have a problem with this as they can rely on Aeroratum to translate, Rune runs into this as she initially only knows Cordonian whereas the primary language of Viscanta is Viscantan.
- This comes in in full force when it comes to written word though. Aeroratum is noted to only translate spoken language, so Ritona and Selphine have to rely on others to translate anything they read for them.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Melano states that "there won't be an 'undo' next time" after the Fission Mailed moment she pulled off at the beginning of the visual novel.
- When talking with her support staff, Rune comments how even though she's only been gone a couple of days it feels like a year and a half — the amount of time between the release of fault - milestone one in 2013 and the release of fault - milestone two side:above in 2015.
- The Mafia: The Guild is basically revealed to be this, carrying out hits on those who flaunt its rules or try to resist it.
- Magic Nuke: Melano flicks a tiny glowing orange spell at the protagonists when they dismiss her claim of omnipotence... which creates a massive explosion that kills the party and devastates the surrounding area with a magical version of radiation poisoning. She then rewinds time while letting the party keep the memories of their deaths and what happened afterwards.
- The Mentally Disturbed: Sceatoire, one of the administrators of the Vita Domain medical facility, is a few cards short of a full deck. She intervenes to stop Selphine-Rhegan from killing one of the guards so she won't have to fill out paperwork and write apology letters, constantly giggles unsettingly in a manner that unnerves even Rhegan, and indicates that her husband's murder at the hands of the original Rune drove her insane.
- Mercy Kill: After discovering the scam the pharmacist pulled on Sol and Mil, Selphine-Rhegan foresees how Sol would react through a bout of clairvoyance and decides to save everybody the pain (both physical and emotional) by granting the pharmacist as quick and painless a death as she can without revealing what he'd done.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Selphine can only break down and endlessly apologize for ordering Ritona to utilize a high-level Kravte at the very beginning during her episode of Empress Syndrome. Said act nearly kills her later on, and leaves her with a condition that could permanently cost her the ability to use magic.
- Selphine has another moment when she realizes she had just committed murder, again under Rhegan's influence, though its also implied a lot of it was her own choice due to seeing how the events would effect the others if she didn't kill him.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands:
- Rune being able to "download" new abilities may come off this way.
- At the very end of the game Selphine's powers grow into letting her see into the future.
- Pet the Dog: As harsh as Selphine-Rhegan is, she does grow a soft spot for Sol and Mil. She helps them learn to live for themselves and even kills the pharmacist to keep them from losing hope.
- Physical God: Melano. She casually negates Ritona's most powerful manakravte with no apparent effort, and with an equal amount of effort casually nukes the entire continent with one spell, before bringing everyone back to life and rewinding time to just before she cast that spell, and then implanting the memories of both the spell and three years' aftermath into their heads. Selphine-Rhegan calls it a mere illusion manakravte, albeit a bizarre one. As of now, it's impossible to tell if Melano is really that strong or if it were just an illusion.
- Running Gag: Rune often stutters when introducing herself, leading people to comment how “Rurune” is an odd name.
- Out of Focus: Ritona basically disappears shortly after being kidnapped and is off screen for most of this chapter. Instead Selphine and Queen Rhegan (or at least, half of her) get A Day in the Limelight.
- Sarcastic Confession: Selphine-Rhegan outright tells Mil she's a princess, but Mil doesn't believe her.
- Sex Slave: In the final chapter, the Pharmacist shows up with a group of thugs and all-but outright declares his intent to let them rape Selphine and Rune before selling them into prostitution for daring to defy the guild. When this fails to intimidate either of them, he orders Ruckle—a cannibalistic serial killer with a preference for young women—to murder them.
- Shirtless Scene: When Ritona is changing in a bathhouse she is shown topless from the back and side.
- Ship Tease: Ritona catches herself admiring a sleeping Rune's beauty — and pondering how anatomically correct she is — and is flustered when Rune abruptly wakes up and catches her staring.
- Soap Opera Disease: Ritona is starting to suffer from some strange symptoms with an initially-unidentifiable source. Later on, it is revealed that Ritona is in life-threatening condition from using a high-level manakravte from the beginning of the Visual Novel.
- The Sociopath:
- Queen Rhegan is said to have once slit the throat of her former closest friend (and possibly lover) once he turned traitor without a hint of hesitation or remorse. Selphine, having Rhegan's memories, reveals that all she was thinking of as she was stabbing him was how she would have to change out of her now-bloodstained dress. Selphine notes that Rhegan is not much different from Rune's original self, and Rune reminisces about her original self's lack of empathy and love of killing while watching Sol murder the pharmacist.
- Ruckle, one of the Guild's thugs, is a serial killer who enjoys mutilating young women to death and eating their wombs.
- Split-Personality Merge: When they are unable to find Ritona, Selphine meditates to commune with her ancestors through the Path-Down System and secedes control of her body to the ruthless Queen Rhegan via the Path-Down System. While Rhegan is the dominant personality, to the pont of referring to Selphine as a separate individual, she comments that Selphine's personality will eventually reassert itself over time and it's noted by Rupika Greas that this is a "mild" manifestation of the ruthless queen indicated to be tempered by Selphine's natural compassion and empathy. The resulting mix of the two's personalities is referred to as Selphine-Rhegan.
- Split-Personality Takeover: Emperor Syndrome, or "Empress Syndrome" in Selphine's case, is a feature of the Path-Down System wherein the inherited memories and personalities of past rulers that haven't been assimilated yet can be channelled by the recipients in times of danger—through the user remains fully cognizent of their actions. When Melano attacks, Selphine instinctively channels the ruthless but charismatic Queen Rhegan, leading to Ritona developing a potentially fatal condition as a result of Selphine ordering her to use a powerful spell while low on mana. When Ritona goes missing, Selphine attempts to commune with her ancestors for help and secedes control of her body to Rhegan's personality — to the point where Rhegan scornfully refers to Selphine as a separate person. Rhegan comments that Selphine's personality will resurface over time — resulting in a Split-Personality Merge of sorts called Selphine-Rhegan.
- Take That!: The entire scenario with Mil and the Pharmacist soaking her and Sol for money on ineffective treatments rather than an actual cure (which would stop bringing in profits for him) is pretty much a huge insult directed towards real life pharmaceutical companies.
- These Hands Have Killed: Selphine murders the pharmacist to spare her friends their pain she sees via clarvioyance, and in the ending has to live with her choice, even more so because its implied due to the way her eyes keep changing throughout that scene that it was entirely her choice and not Rhegan's—ironic since earlier in the game she vowed to never become a killer like Rhegan.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: In addition to the story of Ritona, Selphine, and Rune traveling home a B plot involving three new characters, Misha, Flora, and Riggs, from their homeland trying to find them is introduced.
- Urban Segregation: Port Sasary is a coastal town in Viscanta, which was once a prosperous city due to the presence of the Vita Stream — a river of mana that can heal illnesses and extend the lifespan of those who live near it. Over time the Vita Stream shifted under the ocean and a large section of Port Sasary flooded, devastating Viscanta's economy. The wealthy neighboring country Seris stepped in and built the underwater community of Neo Sasary just off the coast so that the wealthy people of Seris could take advantage of the Vita Stream, while treating the people of Viscanta like trash and relegating them to the increasingly poor and crime-ridden surface.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: In Chapter 4, Ritona contacts Rune and Selphine and it's revealed that time within the Vita Domain flows more slowly than it does outside, so that while from their perspective she's been gone a few days, from hers she's been trapped inside for weeks.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Melano's ultimatum to Ritona and Selphine: either never return to their homeland and live, or return to their homeland and be killed by her hand.
