“History is written on fragments of truth”. Backstory Ghost of a Tale

Attention, this article is one big spoiler and is intended for those who have passed the game or for various reasons are not going to go through it (at least I also took into account this option when writing). If you do not dare to read my review or any other found on the Internet, and it is better to go to the page of the game in the store and decide you like what you see. If so, then the game should give a chance, it is worth it. And it is better to return after passing.

Previously, a small retreat. As a cover for this article, I took Art from the artist Jerome Jacinto, he painted 2D illustrations that can be found in the game in t.h. And the avatars of the characters, as well as in games with a similar setting Armello and Tooth and Tail, his twitter and artistyshn. His art is very cool, I recommend that he get acquainted, especially if I liked Goat. Well, there is not a zero probability that in the development of a hypothetical second part of the game, he will also take part.

In addition to official illustrations for the design of the article, I also used various fan arts links to their authors and original work will be in the image signature.

Well, since we talked about the creators, I would like to quote Lionele Galla from an interview with the LEVELUPTRANSLATION site, which, together with Paul Mardner, are the authors of this story:

Each line should be important, otherwise this line should not be. I do not like when three pages of text are given to me in RPG when it could be expressed in two sentences.

And this is a great characteristic of a local plot. Most of it is submitted through short, but capacious dialogs, through songs and even articles in the directory, and notes will not take much time for reading, especially considering that there are few notes here. But at the same time, there are a huge number of events and all sorts of details in the plot, and from this I confess in the process of working on the article I began to burn, but this is rather a compliment of the work done on the world and history.

The problem is what, I have long wanted to make out a plot and a game that passes in a leisurely ten hours seemed an excellent candidate. Moreover, this is not a deconstruction of the genre, not a meteen -meter of irony, but a simple fantasy adventure of a small sweet Menestrel mouse in a dangerous world. Adventure concentrated on just telling a good story. However, this turned out to be not quite. No, the story is still simple, without special claims and other things, but this is the difficulty: the usual situation for this game is when you have facts contradicting each other and they are sometimes located literally on one screen.

Yes, like that? Quietly like in the grave? Undead in the tower? Otto will generally say that undead there is everywhere, and not just in the tower. Who to believe? Well. Everyone is right, but more on that later.

And sit, think how it is, and why is it so. But what is interesting if you sit and think, and even better to look for other conversations and notes on the topic, everything will become clear. This difficulty became the main reason why I rewrote solid pieces in the article many times, because sometimes one lost line, or even a couple of words at a distance of half the game from the main dialogue describing the event, can turn over the idea of ​​this event, or even adjacent, because the plot is very connected so that even the earliest event that takes place a thousand years before the start of the game becomes one of the reasons why the main character is Tilo.ended up in prison. Damn, I even copied this prologue several times. Initially, it said that the story is interesting, but the white spots are much, but now this is not. And not that they were not at all, just in the process of work for me there were much less, and the remaining ones are justified by the fact that the story breaks off at half -word and clearly left to continue.

And as I said in the review, I really like this game, when the background is not just for the sake of background, but an important part of the work, perhaps even more important than the main plot that has a huge impact on the main events and even slightly shed light on future. I’ll say even more. The main plot in this game is only a logical completion of the backstory (which really does not end in, which is called at the most interesting place). All plot branches in the game begin the events that occurred before the start of the events of the game. Even the most important events of history have already been completed by the time of awakening Tilo in melting towers both to him and other characters can only rake the consequences.

And therefore, although I wanted to talk about the plot, I previously forced (and rather I want) to retell the background. Initially, this should have been a brief retelling of the main events, without details and other things, and therefore only one part of the article was planned, but Laura in the game was so much that it displaced the main plot and reasoning on the topic in the second part … and afterwards it has grown three times more.

However, there is another side. Since the story is presented through dialogs and even a story is often found on behalf of the witnesses of this event or rumors or alternative opinions are mentioned, the background here plays the role of an unreliable storyteller, and therefore some of it may be untruthful. And although I brought more or less to the common denominator, I still intend to tell the story that Tilo knows at the time of the end of the game, and in the second part I will be in doubt, and others to supplement the details. That is why the quote from the game is displayed in the title.

And since the SPSG this time I had to keep back, I decided to experiment with the format. First of all, my goal was to collect everything in the game and even a little from the official website and twitter of the developer to make the narrative as complete and linear, starting from the oldest event, ending with the awakening of Tilo at the beginning of the game. True, I slightly mixed the background of the characters so that they better complement each other and organically end this article. Secondly, instead of a dry retelling, what would be appropriate for brief entry in the course of the main part of the article, I decided to try to stylize this article under the story and fill the story with details about the world, explanations and other facts, such a thought came to me when it seemed to me that it was a good idea (though I could have been mistaken in this case and I did not have fun and I did not have nothing to work on it.I regret).

It’s just that the background is important, and its substantial pieces can be missed during the first passage, I know this by myself. Therefore, I decided to tell the most complete version, but a dry retelling of the size of a whole article seemed uninteresting and unworthy of this game, which is climbing out of the skin just not to be boring and dry.

But before I start, I want to say a few words about.

Translation difficulties

In general, as far as I did, with his unprofessional bell tower, I was able to notice that the game is being translated in Russian and English as a whole well, but the ENT of the Russian game and ENT of the original are somewhat different. This is mainly due to the translation of songs. Since it is quite difficult to translate the song literally and keep the rhyme, some of them were changed. And sometimes these are small and generally insignificant changes. For example, in the song “Poisoned Chalice”, the line “For Seven Days The Emerald Fire” turned into “Fourteen days of emerald fire”. I think there is no need to explain that Seven is translated as seven, not fourteen. But until the second part came out and said: “Guys, but this is actually an important fact!”, I will not find fault. Moreover, some of the songs are adapted very well.

However, there is another fact regarding this song, which in the second part may just be important this material from which the “poisoned bowl” was made. The original “Carved of Finest Jade”, which can, let it be with a stretch, translate as “from jasper of carved”, but there is a small problem. Jasper has red (mainly), and jade green, fold it with “emerald fire” and get a much greater probability that the bowl was still made of jade.

And of course you can quote from Wikipedia:

And the events of the “poisoned bowl” occur just in ancient times. And this may have the right to exist. But if you look for jasper on the Internet, you will get a scattering of red, yellow and only occasionally pale green stones, and even find a green bowl of jasper. Good luck. Yes, and translators offer to translate Jade as Jasma only as an alternative, so it is more likely that the material was jade material. However, it is not a fact that this thicket existed at all, but this is already the second part of the article and the second part of the game (possibly).

However, one of the most important songs devoted to one of the main conflicts of the game is just very different in tone and content, but this is already important. The song “A murder of Crows” is translated like a flock of raven yes, that’s right, not murder. The essence of the name is that it describes a certain group of relations inside which is mildly restless, that is, deadly troubles. In our country, this song was translated as “each creature has a name for a reason”. And if the Russian version jokingly ridicules of different creatures and says: “But you can’t find the rats of rats worse”, then the original is more likely to list different creatures, and then goes to rats, calls them “plague” (interestingly, this is a reference to the fact that rats in the Middle Ages spread the plague?), and then calls to get rid of them, t.e. contains a direct call to the genocide. And I can’t help but note that the original transfers the attitude of the mouse people to rats better and fits better into the setting of the game, which may seem to be a simple sweet story about a sweet mouse, but in reality it is only partly. In general, these two versions greatly affect the perception of this conflict, and the original makes the setting more gloomy.

But in addition to free translation of songs, there are also errors in the text. One of them is rather rude and appears at the very beginning of the game. The initial text reads “in the battle in the periLavskaya valley”, but the perijet, anything (more on this is also in the second part), but definitely not the valley, and in the original, preserving the intrigue, without indicating the type of geographical object, only “at Periclave” is indicated.

The true, but misleading translations of the names are sometimes found, which a little complies with the understanding of the lore, but let’s deal with this along the way, otherwise I will tell in this chapter the solid part of the plot.

Perhaps at least one joke, the translation was able. it may not be killed, but to make much less funny. If you ask Rolo in the Russian version “What are you doing?”In response, we get” hammering “drum fraction and curtain, laugh, laugh everyone. And it seems to be clear that he means that he creates the appearance of work, but the original sounds much better:

-What are you creating?

What version I took as a basis? Well … If I found the differences between the original and the Russian version, I gave the priority to the original, so the text of the songs may slightly differ from my text. However, I could not find everything, since the text in the game is decent and sometimes different variants of dialogs can give different information, and collecting a full Russian version was not to say, it would be difficult, but time is expensive. I also did not undertake to collect the full English version of events, so basically the text was written from the Russian version and only what caught my eye.

Excellent, it was decided on this. There will be no conclusions in this part, so I finally start.

The war of the green flame

Green flame is an emptiness … without thought, without a goal … just all -consuming power. Those whom she overtakes, stand in her ranks. Some people think this is a divine force that checks us, but who knows? Perhaps it has always been among us.

No one knew where the green flame came from. This unreasonable force, not in charge of mercy, inexorably walked along the lands of Pangea, destroying and enslaving everyone who would stand in her way, replenishing their limp armies killed by the walking dead. No one could withstand him neither badger, nor ferrets, nor even hawks.

Someone did not leave hopes to subordinate and use this power, someone hoped to pay off, and someone insisted on its destruction. Disputes between the peoples went for a very long time and when the advice of Asper was still able to gather too late. The green flame was on the threshold of the capitals of each nation.

For seven days there was a siege mouse of the capital Pesa. Green flame destroyed wheat fields and ravaged the territory. The allies were ready to help mice, but they needed time to group. The mice, in turn, made a promise to keep a strategically important pass until the reinforcement arrives, but the power and uncontrollability of the enemy crushed their courage forcing them to go the other way.

As a tribute to the greatness of the green flame, and in the hope of praying mercy, the mice wanted to present him with a bowl carved from jade, and were also ready to give out weaknesses of the rest of the peoples. But contrary to the hopes of the green flame, it turned out to be incorruptible and the mouse kingdom of Muridey was practically destroyed. Let the enemy manage to achieve a contract, the rest of the species did not forget this unforgivable betrayal, which was subsequently expensive to mice. And as is usually the case with all important events, Menestrel did not leave this shameful page with a mouse of history without attention:

The world was on the edge of the bright abyss, and was ready to perish the emerald languages ​​of flame, but twelve rat heroes led by King Rodgar the Great and his general Jarlan rallied the rat army around him to give the last battle to the green flame on the island of the perijet.

After hundreds of years, there was little information about the battle. Only magpies can tell something like a full story, which appreciates information above all, but in order to talk with the forty and survived, you need to be no less than the king, only they can tell their secrets, and even then it will not work to say whether this story was complete, because the knowledge for the forty, which is subject to evaluation and does not waste just like that.

It is only known that the victory was achieved with the help of the great pipes, which was designed by the warrior, poet and architect Hait High. They built these huge buildings Beladon badgers, which are famous for their carpentry skills and tireless craving for research. Today, some of these pipes were destroyed, robbed or went under water. It is not known for certain how exactly they were used in the Periklava battle, but the heroes of that battle were killed, protecting them.

Giot was the first at the forest gate. The archer Ull died nearby, casting a last look to the north, where his house was. Hight high was influenced by green flame and Duinlan had to kill his lover. To the southwest of the Great Pipe lost his life of Kanlan. Klini died on the northern slopes in the shadow of her beloved oak. Harrat emitted the last breath looking at the Vaelian plain and the sun, which sat over the horizon. Two sisters of Venda and Theol died together under the arches, and Silderrat fell before the last call of the pipe. General Jarlan also sacrificed himself for the sake of victory, although many were sure that if he survived, he could take the king’s place. Duinlan, whose courage inspired rat heroes, passed away in regrets that she had to kill her love. They were going to get married in Kim after the war, but the war did not end for them. Among the dead were Karam, but the circumstances of his death are unknown. It was not destined for the fallen heroes that the price that they paid brought the fruits and the world for which they fought survived. Of course, such an important event could not be left without the attention of the minstrels that they put up many ballads about this legendary battle.

The bodies of the dead heroes found the last refuge on the southeastern shore of Lake Vaeal, where twelve majestic tombs were erected, built by a wide circle. True, after hundreds of years, some tombs were dilapidated, plundered, or even completely destroyed. Others were on the contrary and turned into a chain of protective fortresses. Although, some of these fortresses also fell into decay over time. However, the rats to this day make pilgrims into these tombs in order to give them honors to the feat and the victim that they brought, as well as get a blessing from the patrons, which were the fallen heroes.

For example, Duinlan, whose courage inspired the heroes to rush into the last battle and pull out this world from the claws of the bright abyss, became the patron of lost hope. Travelers come to the tomb of Karam for blessing to protect them from troubles on the road. Nokta has become the patron of those whose life depends on the wind, which permeates Pangea, and Jarlan of the musicians, who are of the centuries of the sounds of songs dedicated to the great heroes and events.

Each creature has no name

The war of the green flame ended and life in Pangea gradually returned to normal. Rodents, birds and amphibians of various species, restored their homes, buried and mourned the fallen and prepared for further life. The almost sole victory of rats in this war helped to win the dominant position in the world and become the most influential political and military force. And although the rat kingdom continued to be called the Kingdom, in essence it began to resemble the empire.

But not to say that the life of rats has become completely carefree. They regularly suffered the predatory raids of aggressive ferrets from the salor. The ferrets generally had a dubious reputation among other species. Many called them crazy, but it did not bother them much, because the Solore army was the force of which even rats had to be considered. Not to mention the actual monopoly on the trade of salt that they produced in their mines.

One of these raids fell on the reign of Rodrick the First. The Salorsky Army was approaching the capital of the Rat Kingdom and when the alarming bell rang, the king was not distinguished by courage in one of the towers of the castle. And on the eve of the battle, when the king had a chance to show valor and courage, and completely sailed on one of the ships, grabbing a coronation stone, which was also called a “singing stone” so that no one could capture the throne in its absence, and abandoned their people to the mercy of fate. But fate did not spare and Rodrik himself. His ship crashed, and he died. The coronation stone was lost. The king, who received the nickname “cowardly”, did not have known the heirs, and even though everyone could declare the readiness of the singing stone in a rat kingdom, his loss made this procedure impossible, and therefore the roof kingdom suffering from the struggle for power plunged into chaos in chaos. About the “exploits” of Rodrika, subsequently bards folded the ballad:

The need to eliminate threats hanging over the rat kingdom forced five rat barons, led by Osdric, unite and create an extraordinary government council. The Council successfully managed to expel the ferrets from the rat land and restore order in the country. In addition, the rats annexed the mouse kingdom of Muridea, which, after the betrayal during the war of the green flame, had a bad reputation among other peoples, and therefore could not find support among them.

Having built their regional administration called Yuva in Muridei, which was popularly nicknamed – “nail”, rats banned the weapons wear mice, as well as a formal meeting in the ASPER Council. Mice naturally did not like the new order, but they did not have the strength to resist the rats. However, this did not stop some representatives of the mouse people from organizing the rebel movement. They called themselves the “sons of Asper” in honor of the mouse politician, the great speaker, the founding father of Murideya, as well as the advice of Asper in which representatives of all reasonable creatures were sitting on equal terms. The motto of their uprising was the phrase – “Until they hear us!”.

Baron Osdrick himself, who ruled the mouse lands was a native of Murideya. At first, the baron tried favorably with the mouse people and played for the wide autonomy of the region, but after the riots the riots, the rest of the barons called Osdrik and gave the order to restore order in the mouse in the region. However, there were those who did not want to see Osdrik in the Council at all. On the way to the dog, he was ambushed and was seriously wounded. Mice that were members of the “sons of Aspere” saved him and helped to get to his feet. Unfortunately, this did not save the mouse people from many troubles.

The suppression of riots was cruel and bloody. In response to the unrest in the north of Murideya, the guardian of Osdrick began to identify dangerous representatives of the mouse people. Although it is worth noting that the barons did not restrain themselves in the choice of means of suppressing the riots on their own rats. Because of this, a symbol of the Council, which was supposed to mean five rat barons that control the country in the minds of many, began to be associated with a bloody imprint of rat paw. A sign of a new order.

Mice arrested even for the smallest misconduct. So in the north of Muridei, a mouse was delivered to the garrison of Bolshoi Birchem, supposedly for insulting a member of a rat guard. This mouse died in prison, and later it turned out that she did not insult anyone, but only repeated her name “Pochert”. Due to the egregious injustice and rat cruelty in a large bircham, riots flashed. It all started with the burning of the thirteen banners of the “red paw”, and after the whole garrison was burned to the ground. The sons of Asper said that it was they who acted as the organizers of this rebellion, but this led only to greater cruelty from the rat guard. This enmity and cruelty found its reflection in the mouse culture:

Menestrel’s path

Riots, intrigues, conspiracies and politics, thundered somewhere endlessly far from the road along which two minstrels walked. Two mice master Gerardus Lwulin and his student Tilo wandered forward, leaving behind him villages and outposts, shortly a long way for songs and stories. One of these stories of the master Lyulin was the retelling of the book he wrote.

She narrated about the Menstrel that she kept the way north to the battlefield of two great armies. This nameless minstrel wared among the bodies of the dead, keeping the way to the winners camp. He arrived there at sunset and was accepted with honor. In the camp, Menstrel learned that by the morning of nine soldiers were supposed to be hanged for cowardice and desertion.

At night, the army commander asked Menstrel to play the “fire of the immortals” to remind his soldiers that the mouth in battle for their people is the highest honor, and the deserters were an eternal shame. Minestrel did not resist, in the end his vocation was, but before he started playing, he put it into a lute stone, picking up on the battlefield, still hot from spilled blood. Then the minstrel began the game, without changing either words or notes, but Luta, who usually sounded fun and bright because of the pebble, sounded cold and quietly.

The soldiers listening to the sad motive of the song did not think about honor and valor, but about the fallen friends and about mothers that they would no longer bring them dinner in the field. The minstrel finished playing the “fire of the immortals” and the commander ordered the executioner to prepare nine strong ropes for traitors. However, the next morning deserters disappeared. Their shackles were open, which is strange because the only key to them hung on the neck of the commander.

“Because every wise minstrel knows – it’s not what kind of song to sing, but how.” – taught the master Lwulin of his student. Tilo did not know about whom this story was and whether this minstrel really existed, but he suspected that it was about the mentor of the master Lyulin. This mentor once belonged to Lutny that the teacher Tilo was now at his back. He made it from wood collected from the shores of Lake Vaeali.

Red rose

On the road, the master Lulilin became bad. Tilo was afraid that his teacher could not withstand the return trip to the village through which they passed two days ago. And without him, the young minstrel was left alone in the area unfamiliar to him. Putting the master Lyulin on the cart Tilo went forward. Having traveled a long way through the hills, along broken roads, making his way through streams, Tilo finally reached the moss overgrown with moss, behind which lay the village of Hamel.

It was raining, the teacher did not get better and Tilo had no acquaintances in this village. For local pair of minstrels were just another lost travelers, strangers, but despite this they sheltered them. Knowing old woman prepared a decoction of an elderberry to knock down the heat of the master Lulilin. In gratitude for kindness, the young minstrel tried to repay all the few that he had left, but the locals refused the fee, but willingly accepted Tilo’s proposal to work in the field until the teacher got better. Many sons and husbands left the village to work in a copper mine and working hands were worth its weight in gold.

Days, weeks, the teacher was recovering. Tilo worked in the field during the day, and in the evenings he played local songs about places that they did not even hear about. One of these evenings mouse pushed the young mouse forward to the dance. Seeing her, the minstrel was surprised that in all those weeks that he spent in the village he never paid attention to her.

Tilo began to play a stranger, and she began to dance to his music. The pair enchanted by the sounds, the couple accelerated and accelerated the pace, and no matter how bright the coals burn in the stake, her eyes burned brighter for Tilo.

After some time, the master Lwelin came to his senses, but was still weak to get up or even speak. Every morning Tilo sat next to him and played a song hoping that she would help him gain strength. On the seventh day, the teacher whispered the name of the young Minstrel and asked for it. The student fulfilled the request, but even leaning closer, he barely heard the slurred whisper of his teacher, “the lute is upset”.

Tilo worked in the field, and Merra was nearby. She was fooling around. For the sake of laughter, she stuffed her cheeks with seeds and rushed into Menstrel with whole handfuls. Merra, whose name on mouse meant “sunflower”. She loved Tilo and was happy to be next to him.

The last rays of the autumn sun shone. The crop was harvested, and at the same time, Lulilin sang for the first time in a long time. His voice was strong and clean and Tilo realized that it was time for them to go two, until the winter rushing to the valley, having made the road, making a journey impossible. But it also meant that he would have to part with Merrai. He would so much like her to go with him, but he realized that this would not happen. Her brothers were too small for working in the field, and her father was already too weak.

Tilo had a difficult choice to leave with the master or stay in the village with Merrai. He did not want to choose one thing, and he could not decide on the choice that put off day by day. So far, one day the choice has not been made for him. The room of the master Lyulin was empty, and the bed was refined. On the table lay the luters of his teacher, and next to the note: “Life is the song you sing”.

Deprived of the torment of Tilo’s choice remained in Hamele and made Merra an offer. Before the wedding, the Menstrel cut out a loud, a small mouse figure, as was customary for his people on the occasion of the wedding or birth of a child, painting it with lime so that it becomes white, symbolizing life. Seeing the Lutka Merra noted that her nose is shorter in her life. After the wedding, he continued to work hard in the field and learned a lot over time: how to read signs of land and winds, which changes when changing the seasons, that from the crop goes to food, what’s on paints, and what about fabric. Since the master Lewilin has gone three years.

Soon Tilo and Moldra is born a child. Just one that among mice is very rare and is considered a good sign. New life and new white beam. Merra named him Brin, in honor of the character of mouse folklore, a mouse about three heads, which sows the grain of hope in dreams. However, the “Brin” from Murida was also translated as “grain”. Luta lay in the attic, upset and forgotten, and let Tilo dreamed the sounds of her beautiful song, he was happy from the life that he had and did not miss Minstrel’s free life.

Over time, the Merra brothers grew up and went to try his luck in the mines. Soon her father died of old age. Merra raised Brin, and Tilo continued to work in the field. Rumors began to reach the village that the Rat Guard captured the mine. They made shifts longer, flooded new adits and forced the mines to dig deeper and deeper into the ground where the sunlight did not penetrate.

Autumn was coming to an end and was preparing to give way to cold winter. The wind gave way to the western bringing thin sails of the web on which there were small spiders from the mines. Unnoticed by anyone, they buried in the ground in the fields to gain strength.

Passed the days and everything went on as usual. But one day, as if an arrow in a peaceful calm everyday life burst out a cry of Merra coming from the kitchen. Having rushed there, Tilo discovered a dead spider with Tesak Moldra in his head, and near Brin. He was very frightened by what happened and cried, but soon it fell silent, the spider’s poison quickly spread throughout the body. The child was breathing heavily and looked inseparably at his parents. Grabbing the son of Tilo and Merra through the snowstorm rushed to the mines, in the huts of which the doctor was able to help Brin.

But the way was blocked by the outpost on the Ternsky tract, which was guarded by two rats. The sentries did not dare, to do anything without the order of the sergeant, who was not in place, and therefore sending him Tilo detained him and said to wait. Two hours later, that for Tilo seemed eternity, the third rat appeared. It turned out to be the same sergeant. Surrending the stupid sentries, he grabbed Brin, wrapped him in a raincoat, sat on horseback and galloped to the mines. But it was already too late. The kid died, not even having time to even leave the Turned tract.

Brina was buried in the village near the fields. The murdered grief Tilo painted the soot of his son with soot, now she gained a black color meaning death. He put the lollie back in the waist bag.

Spring changed winter, but flowers did not bloom in Hamele. Under a dense web, the whole winter culture in the fields suffocated. Even Brin’s grave had to be cleaned regularly. It was decided to burn the field. Merra stood on the pass and watched as a chain of carts in the distance forever leaves the village. She and Tilo also had to leave this place in which they had memories of terrible loss.

So they hit the road. Every evening, a new place, new strangers, a new bed. Tilo himself was surprised how quickly he returned to the almost forgotten life of Menstrel. Yesterday he worked in the field and raised his son, and today holding Merra’s hand wanders on the road with a lute behind his back. In the end: “The house is not where the roof and walls. The house is where she is next to me, Tilo thought.

On stage they were not equal, they were one. Tilo and Merra – Menstrel and Dancer. On stage, but beyond its borders Merra more and more moved away from Tilo and closed in herself. Sometimes she disappeared for several hours returning when the sun was already sitting. “I just walked,” she answered, immersed in her thoughts and memories. They didn’t talk about Brin.

Once Tilo woke up from a loud scream and found Merra by his bed. She whispered to Menstrel “Leaving. Now “. Tilo did not understand at all what was happening, but still silently nodded and began to dress. He hid the cart and left for Merry deep into the forest. Menstrel did not ask about what happened then. He was afraid to hear the answer.

Tilo and Merra received an unexpected invitation to the local Baron Osdrik. He wanted the minstrel and the dancer to entertain guests at the festival. Appearing to the baron pair appeared before him. With a malicious smirk, he ordered the couple to play the “poisoned bowl”, a song about a humiliating page by a mouse of history, the minstrel immediately realized that it was not for fun, it was a check. The Minestrel did not want troubles for himself and his beloved, but Merra only looked Baron in the eye and was silent. The cruel baron was about to hit the dancer, Tilo rushed to her defense, but feeling a sharp pain fell into the dark.