LogFAQs > #951044153

Door 2 - 1707
We open it to find a terrifying beast within. It's slaughtered many and the stench of blood and carnage is almost overwhelming. There is wine and foodstuffs, but mostly it just smells like death as this terrifying creature rips into its latest kill.

A war has just ended, and bodies litter the open areas. I have noticed that the transitions have changed, a growing dark and inky blot rather than the tidy growing and shrinking circle from Door 1. The creature is asked by the Maid what its name is, and it introduces itself reluctantly as Bestia.

This is bringing 2015 into sharp focus. Bestia is Bestia. Anyway...

The Maid hands it something very much like the gift given to White-Haired Girl during Mell's highly-orchestrated walking-out with her... Bestia holds it gently. If this connects to the previous door, I wouldn't be surprised at the unsettling feeling that this is what Mell's spirit has become.

All righty. Bestia learns to dress, speak, and act as a master of the house. A merchant stumbles in, quite lost, and we host him for a meal - but as soon as he mentions a terrifying beast on the loose killing people and that he has a knife to protect himself against said beast... Bestia jumps into action, murderating the merchant on the spot, even as he begs for his life, begs to be allowed to return to his beloved.

We see a scene of his beloved, Pauline, receiving the news of his sudden death...

Bestia's bloodlust was unrelenting. The mansion, which fulfills desires, kept giving him villagers, and he kept murdering and devouring them in increasingly creative ways.

I definitely played much of this part not in fullscreen o_o;;;

Then, WHG visits!! And it seems like all the madness drains from Bestia for a moment! Hmmm... He invites her into the same song and dance that the rest of the weary travelers fell for, only to beg and plead for their lives as he gleefully tortured and slaughtered them. But WHG doesn't do that. Instead, she looks at him with a sort of sympathy in her eyes. We find out she's blind, and therefore can't perceive the terrifying nature of Bestia.

Mell once said to WHG that no darkness is deep enough to not be removed or something like that. Maybe this is playing out with Bestia and WHG, his bloodthirst has certainly waned. Bestia and WHG settle down into something of domestic bliss, less a couple and more family. Bestia mentions losing his mother, father and brothers. This particular WHG cannot remember her father, but instead describes being raised by a single mother. The mother eventually died on the job and WHG was given the money her mother had earned. When WHG was travelling, bandits stole all the money WHG was given from her mother's earnings.

Bestia fears his madness returning - if he were to murder another visitor, then WHG might leave him, and he couldn't bear the thought! Instead of a typical visitor, another beast shows up! Bestia tries desperately to protect WHG, urging her back in her room as he does deadly battle with his beastly doppleganger.

We get a flashback to the Merchant's departure from Pauline. She's momming him before he goes off on his trip, and reminding him to drink plenty of water. There are certainly moments in this soundtrack's vocals that take on a Bjork vibe. I dig it.

Pauline is hunting down her sweetie, the Merchant. She runs into Javi, a kid with a bad attitude, and tries to befriend him with very little success.

Bestia is embarrassed at having attacked the intruder beast, trying to cover it up around WHG.

WHG and Bestia discuss the nature of what it means to be human. WHG insists that she has a similar experience with being called a witch and ostracized because of her white hair and blood-red eyes [which I'm now wondering ... albinism?]. They accept each other.

Pauline recalls a lovely memory of the Merchant returning from an 18-month trip and saying how much he missed her. Ngl, the Merchant is my type - that sort of elegant face and hair, in stark contrast, always gets me.
Pauline wanders around a town near the seaside where the Merchant's ship is rumored to have foundered. She runs into a jerk kid named Javi who is also an outsider of sorts, and they have a teasing sibling type relationship. He gives her an orange to try to get her to leave, haha. He makes a pitfall in the beach and she falls in, twisting her ankle. The two take a little rowboat out and have a chat. Pauline tells of her missing Merchant and how she's searching for him, and Javi talks about being orphaned, his parents both murdered... by Bestia.

We experience a flashback - lunch with Pauline, her parents, and the Merchant. Her father returns to work after lunch and urges Pauline to take the Merchant for a walk around the town. "Perpetually stern look on his face" yessss. I'm all in. They end up having a pleasant conversation as they walk, and she finds out the dress that her father brought home for her had been picked out by the Merchant in the style of his home country. She already said she liked the dress, so there's no going back now. Cute.

Back to the current time - Javi confesses to Pauline that he does know where the beast lives, but he can't go there and no one else should either unless they want to die. He obviously feels so much fear and regret, not being able to take revenge immediately for his family and then being the scapegoat of the entire village, who are all cowardly in the first place.

Javi promises to take her along if Pauline will not enter the den, and if she makes good on her idea to take Javi back to her hometown when she leaves. Welp. That little scrap of hope is pretty much a death sentence right there, kiddo.

Bestia and WHG have a conversation where Bestia is pretty convinced that he is only beastly, and there's nothing he can do about it. He's smashed everything reflective in the whole mansion. WHG undresses and when they embrace, Bestia sobs.

We have a flashback to the beginning of the Merchant and Pauline's relationship - their love confession before he leaves again to trade via the sea.

Back in the current time - Javi takes Pauline towards the den of Bestia. He nicknames her Polly, and she accepts it. I feel a little unsure about Javi, but this whole door's storyline has made me feel uneasy from the beginning. The den is an enormous mansion against the sea, and terribly overgrown.

I'm contractually obligated to let you know that if ivy is growing on the walls of a structure and the owners refuse to have it removed, State Farm will not insure it. The reason is that ivy keeps water close to the walls, which can be a big problem for the eventual breakdown of brick structures. It's a big risk.

Anyway.

Whoa. Pauline sees movement inside the mansion, knocks on the door, throws it open and greets 'Yukimasa', who must be the Merchant. But Javi cries out - stay away! it's the BEAST! We see a reply of some of the beast's slayings, replaced by a crazed-looking Merchant, Yukimasa.

Yukimasa, in his madness, brutally kills Pauline. This is the scene we saw earlier, where Bestia saw another beast approach and killed it instantly. With reference to a katana, and a closer look at Pauline's outfit, Yukimasa was from Japan, and had a kimono made for her, which she wore in a keyhole fashion [her sprite always had arms clasped to her chest, so it was mostly covered].

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Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself...: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?
-Marcus Aurelius