LogFAQs > #939319145

get on the boat? what am i saying.
Zoom to to the Strand.
i'm given an option: tell the truth or lie. truth, duh. she says she won't believe me and wants to meet the grandson. well alright, i'll zoom us into wa-- no? no zoom? i gotta boat my way over? bah.

...or not, because the plot understands my feelings and just does a magic teleport for us. good job devs! honestly the pacing on this quest is pretty steady, can't complain at all on that. any length of time i've stretched out is totally on me. so anyway, i gotta go fetch Kai, i do, bring him over, and he meets Michelle, our rhyming mermaid.

she's convinced it's not him and... then sings to make feet? walks along sand, kisses a grave, is clearly saying goodbye to everything uhhh what. she then compliments the grandson and oh my god don't you dare fall for the same girl.

and then she goes into water and turns to foam like the in-game legends have it. if a mermaid gets on land then she can no longer get in water or else she'll turn to foam. i honestly wonder if that legend applies to things like a shower or a bath. or rain, even. any of those would be a pretty fucked up way to lose your wife. "where'd betty go?" "she was taking a bath. now she IS the bath. may i interest you in some mermaid girl bath water, only $30!"

honestly i know this is a sad scene and do feel a bit on it but i can't help but also laugh because she's the one who purposefully made this a tragedy. i'm being reminded of mermaids from Monster Musume and how the mermaid kingdom is MASSIVELY obsessed with tragedy. Mero and her mom as the prime examples here:





see?
Monster Musume was fucking RIGHT. tragedy obsessed freaks is what mermaids are. but i digress. after she turns to algae food, Kai decides to run to the cabin because he remembered something. we follow, cutscene hits, and that's a really nice painting of her he shows. man, grandpa Kai could draw, this is nicely done. there's also a letter on the back explaining what happened and if you wanted more tragedy here we go:

the kid wasn't a mermaid's obviously, but rather the child of the woman who he was going to marry before having a forbidden love with a mermaid. Que Tragedia! knowing that she had lost her husband she was tired of it all and went to go jump off a cliff with the baby. why include the baby? because tragedy. grandpa Kai saw this and tried to stop them but alas! she jumped! we presume that he went after 'em but he could only save the child, not the mother.

so uh. two things.
one: grandpa Kai, you dodged a serious bullet there.
two: does nobody like... notice that the kid growing up would look an awful lot like the fisherman or village girl? i mean i've been calling her the village girl but she's the elder's daughter. you'd think SOMEONE would realize hey... that kid's really familiar looking. while we're on this, would nobody have noticed the baby looks like the same baby? like i know babies can be hard to tell apart but if you JUST lost one and happen to find one that looks EXACTLY the same, maybe make the connection that... they're the same baby?

third thing! was Kai just incapable of talking or something? like you guys are fishermen, if there's a body i'm sure you guys can get a good crew going to try to find her. also, you're literally holding the baby as proof. alas, grandpa Kai is overcome with fatherly love and decides to dedicate his life to this baby girl. wouldn't it have made more sense to talk things with people in the village? absolutely! but he must dedicated his life for her, he must! oh what a tragic love, split not by a woman scorned but because of her her orphaned newborn daughter!~

god would Mero and her mom love this twist. 10/10, would tragedy again. the fact that the story manages to continue from this position 50 years later to give the mermaid a tragic ending too and complete the cycle is just icing on the cake. the story ends with it clear that he really did love this mermaid and she loved him and now, 50 years later, they're both dead to create a super tragedy. well done writers, you've seriously outdone yourself here.

oh hey there's a pot in this room i can break. got me a new pearl, whoo!
...don't look at me that way if the game didn't want me to break this thing it wouldn't have put it in the room.

so uh.
that's the mermaid quest.
she told us that she left our gift back on the strand so i guess that's where we're going. Zoom! it's now become Death Stranded. where she used to sit is a treasure chest with a key item: Lorelei's Harp. there's also a depressing note attached to it saying that if i'm reading this she's gone but that this thing can let me get underwater in the glowy things. sounds good, thanks foam.

ending updates there for the day.

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"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.